Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-10-26
TYPES OF BEAUTY.
No Possibility of Arriving at Any Stand
ard-Some Odd Ideas.


Various, indeed, are the opinions held
by wide diversity of races regarding
their beauties, though it is often difficult
for people bred under another sky to
share their enthusiasm. The Circassian
women, who have a sort of conventional
reputation for loveliness, are affirmed by
those who know them best to be far from
worthy of their celebrity. Short legs,
glazing red hair, faces SO long and mar
row that their heads seem to have been
squeezed between two boards and flat
tened, noses out of proportion to the rest
of the features and compilations of a
dull, lead like hue, scarcely constitute
beauty according to our standard The
Moors and the Tunisian Jews regard cor
pulence as absolutely essential to beauty,
and the inmates of rich mems harems are
stuffed with nutritious food, like Stras-
bourg geese for the market. The Chi
nese poets sing of the dcformed feet as
"golden lilies" and the rocking of their
women in attempting to walk as the
"waving of willow"
Other races have equally odd ideas of
what constitutes loveliness, for they elm
prove their persons 10y flattening their
foreheads, tattooing their skins, cutting
off their fingers, filing their teeth or
dyeing them black, blue or tartan, paint
ing their bodies, Sitting their ears, COM
pressing their waists, putting stones, bone
or metal through their lips, cheeks, or
ears, and in a dozen other ways trying to
enhance the poor prentice work of nature.
a Felatah lady dyes her hands and feet
with hennah, stains her teeth alternately
blue, yellow and purple, one here and
there being left Of its natural color, pen
ellis her eyelids with sulphuret of anti
mony, and dyes her locks with indigo.
The Hydah woman inserts a plug of
wood or ivory through her lower lip until
1t represents the hdeous appearance of a
fleshy shelf over her chin. A Chinese or
a Siamese lady cultivates long nails A
Hottentot belle cannot get her nose flat
enough, or Parsian beauty hers high
enough.
On the northwest coast of America no
reproach is more bitter than for one In
dian girl to tell another that "your mo-
Their was too lazy to flatten your head"
Tattooing is almost universal among half
civilized or savage races; in New Zea-
land the Maori women, before they began
to imbibe European prejudices, even tat
tooed their lips, lest they should have
the reproach of being red. Some
races slit their ears until they hang in
loops on their shoulders. Others insert
huge rings and other ornaments through
the cartilage of their noses. The Louisi-
ade Islanders regard the lid of sardine
box as particularly neat piece of jew
elry, and even European women have
not yet ceased to suspend bits of stone
and metal through the lobes of their ears.
There is, in truth, no possibility of ar
irving ut any standard of beauty, the
points of which would not do injustice
to some of the competitors. Even among
the whites there are various ideas of
what constitutes good looks. Like man.
ners and morals, beauty is very much a
matter of sky. Just as an Indian told
Traveller what comfort his son was to
him, because ''he could steal more horses
than any boy Of his age" so a western
frontiersman assured a visitor that his
daughter WAS the finest girl in the
settlement, for she could "heft barrel
of pOrl, an lick her weight in wild
cats. london Standard.