Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-10-16
Daily eagle
VOMAN'S REALM,
In the Estate Ruled by the
Daughters Of Eve.
q WINNING RECOGNITION.
WINNING RECOGNITION.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Helps to Guide the Ship of State.
INFECTED WITH THE FASHION,"

Some Women Workers in the United
States-ShouId Understand Politics
Feet of Chinese neutrality-suspicious.
About Birthday Stones-The Young Lady
That's Engaged-Something About the
Girls Who Paint-The Wedding Ring
Finger-Suggestions Concerning the Toilet
and Hints to the Housekeeper
While there is great deal TO be said as to
the folly of following the fashions into their
Extremes, and as to giving up ones time and
thoughts to such affairs there would be a
good deal more to be said if one did not fol-
low them at all. There is not, at any rate,
much of the sort to be said that is new, for
ever since there have been clothes at all they
have been wondered at and criticised and
the fashion" has been one of those potencieS
that even Shakespeare recognized in making
bis weak minded and his insane retain ac-
guaintance with it. 1.-The glass of fashion,"
cries Ophelia concerning her lover Il do
not like the fashion of your garments" says
old Lear. ''You will say they are Persian,
but let them be changed"
Petruchio, too, knew no better weapon to
use in conquering his Katharines shrewish-
ness than these same fashions, showing more
knowledge of them than any modern husband
has, and tearing passion to tatters over
poor Hates gown, although his tailor said,
s'You bid me make it orderly and WELL &C
cording to the fashion and the time To
lind fault is the oldest of all the fashions and
the habit of doing so probably occasions
many OF the frequent changes that the critics
of the fashion so bewail. When all is urged
against the fashions, however, antique or
modern, it remains evident that their variety
is in reality an attempt to find the one proper,
fit and becoming dress for humanity; that
the frequent change is an acknowledgment
of failure; and that as fresh garments have
to be procured with the fresh season, they
may as well be in another mode as in one
that has been tested and found to be not that
which is required.
Ne"y possibly all this is not in the thoughts
of the designers; they design as an occupa-
ton, to produce a variation, and are quite
unconscious that they are but instruments
working out part of the scheme of civiliza-
ton, in the paraphernalia accompanying the
scheme being a comfortable and suitable
dress for man and woman kind-one which
shall be all right as protection from the
hNldLbCl % HllONiIiso i4NtNi''Ii VI HiONSLltnl-
as combining the best of grace and usefulness
and beauty, and the elaboration of all this
being as prolonged process as the elabora-
ton of ali the rest of this same scheme of
civilization.
OF course it is not TO be supposed that the
devotees of fashion, those who spend all their
time and thought and money among the mil
liners and the fashion plates, who .'lie ten
NIGHTS awake porNinoy the fashion Of a nav
doublet," are thinking anything of this ma
ture. For undoubtedly personal motives,
decoration, the desire to outStrip ones neigh
bors, the desire to keep up with the times,
together perhaps with the gratifying of van
ity and the exciting of envy, all have more
share in the business than any philosophy has.
To another circle of people the whole thing
would be obnoxious were it worth while; but
as it is, and since all the rest of the world
obey, how foolish it is to be singular! They
follow with the crowd, not in order to be OBJ
served, but in order not to be observed. If
nature had provided them with feathers, SO
that dresSnakerS and dry goods dealers, and
new designs anc old, could be dispensed with,
and a dip in a brook, with some subsequent
preening, would answer for a toilet, they
would be tolerably content, nor even make
much stipulation as to the color of the plum
age, better satisfied possibly with the gray of
the dove than with the emerald sheen of the
parrot or the scarlet Splendor of the flamin-
go But as it has been ordained otherwise,
thev Wear the clothes that Others do, making
no great inquiry into the matter, adopting
what is given out by those constituted as au-
thority, and thankful to slip along in the
crowd. with no questions asked.
In Paris, in Berlin, in New York, in the
farthest Aleutian island, the women who
study are dressed with sufficient propriety to
pass and if there is any want of chic, of
knowing how to wear the garments, that is
not the fault of the method of cOmmuni-
eating the knowledge But in Sitka, as i'll
Boston, London or Rome, the best dressed
woman will always be she who has not too
early made the new mode her own, nor
chung To it too late, nor been too ardent in
embracing the whole of it and in carrying
out its widest and most prominent whims.
And the woman who is most perfectly ar
rayed will he she whose garments and their
fashion never arrest the eve purposely, and
who, if the eye by any happening, chances to
fall upon her, it viii be seen, neither deties
the fashion nor exhibits herself as its slave,
but whose dress. totally inconSnicuous, is
thoroughly faultless-the woman who obevs
the fashion, not matter of display, not
altogether a matter of dress, but is avoid
ing the vulgarity and rudenesS of obtruding
her own ideas upon the public in matter to
which she has not given the especial study
that would entitIe her To do so.-Harpers /
Bazaar.
birthday stones.