St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-05-20

1Ue hour TOT DaUIl-
6 q J !: q; & !
ingi NewY ork's
ca .r>1> Z Turkish baths is
M NJ cAN W in the morning,
III SE J Ill., promenade in the
WM-2 .eA avenue, the drive
wNcSzSSs..eax in the park, the
GslHAY Wy g. \ matinee, or the
4 . Esy.j;W @. g fashionable call
H. ~ ~, ling dress parade
I W. VI kMZZs,, /Of the afternoon,
~ .An&aNZyW and between the
w &z@lRg hours of 10 and
.1|%T" IL they may be
seen trooping into the baths which are
sacred to their use at this time. All
sorts OF women may be found there.
Fat women 60 there to get thin, and
thin women to get fat. Plain women go
with an indefinite hope that it may
make them beautiful, and beautiful
go to preserve their beauty; sick
women go to get well, old women go to
look young, tired women go to get
rested, and misanthropic, bilious, sallow,
malarial women go to get their COM
plexions and dispositions cleared up,
stylish women go because it is fashion,
able, dainty women because it
is luxurious, and sweet, whole
some, ordinary women go
from laudable ambition to be
clean in the fullest sense of the word.
They come in carriages and on foot, they
come with their maids in attendance,
they come chattering along in pairs and
they come tripping in alone, they come
and dazzle and perfume, with stylish
coitfureS and picturesque arrangements
of gauZe and flowers framing their pref
ty faces. and they disappear in the
small red-curtained rooms or stalls, and
presently reappear clothed Onlyin dia-
monds and sheets, with their hair, be it
sparse or heavy. hanging over their
shoulders. There is a little display of
wOmanly vanity and taste even in the
arrangement of the long white wrap
pings that envelOp them, for while some
women mutfie themselves up awkwardly
and clumsily and trip over the trailing
corners, others throw the white drap-
cries in classic folds about their forms,
gathering them up in one hand away
from the bare white ankles.
The seantily clad attendant fit along
the duSky corridors leading to the bath
rooms, and after them scurry the white
and muffied white figures of the bathers
who seat themselves about the heated
rooms in constrained silence, like the
first arrivals at wedding feast. There
is the nervous woman who comes flying
in with little bottle of smelling salts
and sits anxiously on the edge of the
chair, eXclaiming that she knows she
never C an stand the baths; that the
doctor has ordered them, and she knows
she hasn't strength to endure them, and
she calls for an attendant to tell her all
about it. and interrOgates her neighbor
to know if she isn't getting pale-as
though even corpse could be pale in a
room at that temperature-and then all
at once she does just what she expected
to do, and would have been disappointed
if she hadn't have done, collapSes, and
is helped out with her head done up in
cold towel by the attendant.
Then there is the talkative woman,
who has a little bit of rheumatism or
under her shoulder or somewhere, and
she tells all the other woman all about
it. entering upon the minutest details
with delighted eagerness, just what the
doctor said, and what her husband said,
and what all the old ladies said, etc.,
ETC.. ETC.. ad infinitum.
Then there is the fussy woman who
eXclaims about the heat, and says she is
all burning up, and is sure something is
wrong, and wants drink, and wants
her handkerchief, and wants her head
cooler, asks half hundred questions,
and finally fidgets herself into fever.
The shy little newcomer over in the
corner, demurely wrapped up to her
chin, even her hands tucked under out
of sight, smiles softly at the scene, and
wonders if the freckles across her
nose will melt off. The habitues
of the place lean back, leisurely dream
ing of their conquests. their last SOU
venir nights triumphS and floral ova-
tons, OF their latest and dearest lovers.
while their bangs slowly straighten out
and the perspiration meditatively drips
off their noses.
A FAIR WHITE ARM.
One slender, handsome woman with
heavy mass of dark hair tossed over the
back of the choir, one fair white arm
outlined against its shadow above her
head, the sheet falling from her fault
less shoulders and bust, sits with her
beautiful dreamy eyes full of soft splen-
i dor, all unconscious of the perfect pict-
ure she is making in the white drapery
through which her form is outlined.
I Heavy bath blankets are thrown over
/ them as they hurry down through the
corridor to the Russian baths and taken
away again at the door of the steam
bath, where, on the marble seats about
the plunge, the pretty bathers sit in
various graceful attitudes, with bare
arms snd shoulders One of them flies
up suddenly and goes to the plunge.
She puts one white foot in and draws it
back with little SILVER and screams,
then she tries the other foot, another
little squeal, the stout attendant catches
her suddenly about the waist and away
they go laughing and screaming to-
gether. The girl comes up choking and
frightened, but plucKy. and they try it
once more, the attendant andeavoring
to teach her the stroke in swimming.
After countless attempts, which newt
ably end in failure, she abandons the
idea, and only tries to float, but even
this is in vain, for as soon as she eX-
perienceS the sensation Incident to float
ing, down goes her head, because she
opens her mouth to give the funny little
scream that is the voice of most wOmen's
sensations. Other girls catch the in
spiration, and the tank is full of white
forms with waving, curving white arms.
fannie, Annie, go and attend to your
bride. she looks as if she were going to
faint" whispered the manager, and
: Annie flew with cold water to the res
: cue. Now the bride was, as a matter of
course, the prettiest girl in the place,
with big brown eyes flashing under a
tangle of yellow hair, that fell over
faultless dimpled shoulders down to her
waist; but the prettiest thing about her
was her dainty little feet, pink and
white and dlmpled like baby's, and as
e.. ~ c1, f,f