The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1889-12-27
GRADED MOURNING.
The Kind of Grief That Inspires Very
Little Sympathy.


Little Sympathy.
Two columns of fashion letter are
devoted to fashionable mourning" to
the minuti3 of texture, cut and finish
imperatively demanded of those who
mourn by milliner's chart If this
sort of mourning were rare, such let
tiers of description and advice would
never be written as business or paid
for by newspapers. To 60 into mourn
ing, to wear black clothes when some
one dies that we love, is as natural as
the tears we would hide behind thick
wells, but the grief that expends itself
in the niceties of mourning, in style
and etiquette, is grief that is COM
forted by the advertisement that it
makes for itself. Grief that is con-
cerned with the depth of hem, width
of handkerchief border and the length
of time it must be adopted, is of that
quality which wins the envy of other
mourners and little sympathy from
amused observers.
Dress-makers, when interviewed.
claim that mOurners are their most
fastidious customers, as the sombre-
ness and unbecOmingness of dead
black must be overcome by artistic
arrangements and ingenious adorn-
ment. The length of time that deep,
half and light mourning shall be worn
is nicely graded by conventional rule.
The husband heading the list, and the
time exquisitely adjusted down to the
mOther-in-law and the mother-in-law's
relatives; when mourning by the cal
ender is fully understood. how to do it,
and in what, is explained by card ETH
quette and fashion plates. At certain
stages of sorrow we may admit certain
friends alone, with cut-jet and patent
leather slips. Later on mere acuuaint-
ances may visit us, in the stage of
''pale lavenders'' and soft dove
shades. While all mourners receive
due attention, the widow is the pivotal
strength of the mourning business.
The sanctity of her grief meets the
most obsequious Difference from silk
worm to the shopkeeper. She is even
told the width of her cap border, and
whether it is black, edged with white,
or pure white this season.
In this progressive age, marked par
ticularly by the emancipation of wo-
men into larger lives and higher am
billions, it is singular that fashionable
mourning, with its pretense and affec-
tations OF grief, mourning as pastime,
a diversion and fashion can be toler-
ated. That deadly fear of convention.
in which women have so long been
trained, is the probable reason; a fear
which puts thousands of women into
mourning who feel no grief or in
wardly rebel at the parade and show
ing over a breaking heart. -Washing-
ton Post.
There are five girls in one of the
HUMPHREYS families of Fleming County.
KY, and their names are Arkansas.
Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida and Vir-
ginia.
In Eng lahd the Baptists are divid-
ed into two sects, known as the General
and Particular Baptists. These two
were once wide apart but for years
they have been drawing closer togeth-
er, insomuch that movement is now
on foot to unite them.
The average child knows more than
the teacher gives him credit for, and
the routine drill which is too common
ly practiced and which ignores what
the child already knows. supplies in
stead OF stimulates the intellectual
faculties. Greenwood