Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-12
TIE MALE BEAUTY.
He is ON SHOW TO ATTRACT THE
DOLLARS OF WOMEN.
A Lovely Candy-Puller-Han
Actors-The Power of Kyrle
Bellew-Etc.
New York SIM 1

York ON the subject of male beauty. He
is dry, wizened-up and saturnine little
man, whose first great success was made as
an advertising agent. His income now is
something like 100000 year. His
hobby during the past four or five years
has been the publication of advertisements
which verged on the nude. Everybody
has seen them. They advertise soap, pills
and thousand other things by means of
beautiful women stepping out of baths, re-
Ginning on touches, or staring toward the
starlit heavens with large, soulful and in
tense eyes, heaving bosoms and hands full
of pill-boxes.
"Woman," said my friend, concisely, sis
played out as a thing of beauty. Every
thing now runs toward man."
Nonsense"
"What, you don't believe it? Come
with me minute"
He took tirmer hold on a long and
twisted cigar which he held in the corner
of his mouth, and dragged me to Broad
way, near Twenty-eighth street. 1t was
about o'clock at night. There was a
candy-shop near the corner, but no candy
was displayed in tie window 1t had all
been removed to afford the public full ia
cilities for viewing man within, who was
throwing taffy over a silver hook drawing
it out five or six feet, and then throwing
1t over the hook again and repeating the
operation.
Look at the crowd" said my guide In
a stage whisper.
There were twenty-five or thirty women
in front of the shop, and perhaps half
dozen men. Some of the women were
magnifcently dressed and evidently on
their way to the theater Others were
shop-girls and out-of-town visitors to New
| York.
Look at their eyes," said the man at
my side, softly.
did so, and saw that they were all
looking at the man who pulled the candy,
and not at the candy itself He was quite
a spectacle from the standpoint of a stu
dent of colors. He had sort of face
which breeds in the average man wild
desire to seize brick and begin work
of demolition. 1t was not that the face
was repulsive. Exactly the reverse 1t
was pretty, and of the simpering self-con-
scious style which shop girls adore and
mammas dote upon. He had regular fea-
lures, a placid and supercilious smile,
dropping eyes, which he would occasionally
cast toward the crowd outside the window,
and daintiness of gesture which would
have made him a success on the stage in
the delineation of a certain type of metro
politan character. His hair was sleek,
we'll oiled, and beautifully banged, his
color pink and white, and his narrow
chested body was encased in beautiful
blazer of pink and white silk, drawn to-
gether by heavy and interlaced crimson
cord down the front. On his head he
wore a silk Jockey cap, also of pink and
white stripes, and his hands were rendered
prominent by what might be called out
side cuffs of snowy linen, which came up
to the elbow and completely covered the
blazer sleeve. The languid manner with
which he tossed the tatfy over the big
silver hook was in thorough consonance
with the languorous glance which he oc-
casionally directed toward the women
outside the window
"The man who runs that shop" said the
little agent at my elbow, "has large head
on his shoulders. He has figured things
out. Who buys candy?7
"Women."
"Quite SO. Had woman rather be
waited on by woman or pretty man?
| By pretty man, of course. Any shoe
maker would be able to tell you
that The prettier the man the more
anxious the woman will be to buy of
him. Most of the candy merchants fill
their shops with pretty saleswomen. Moth
ing could be more absurd. The reign of
the male beauty is becoming more pro-
nounced every day. If you are going down
toward the Hoffman l will walk with you
and tell you why / have come to this con-
clusion."
A moment after we had crossed Twenty
ninth street, the agent drew me up to
window and said:
LET me give you fresh illustration"
He pointed to a frame which hung in
the window. There were eight or ten
pictures in the frame. Four were women.
and of the four three were plain, almost
beyond belief. The third one had some
traces of comeliness in her face. The
agent looked at them a moment, and then
smiled at me meaningly.
DO you suppose any stock company in
New York could get along with women
as plain as they are, unless backed up BIZ
|
ceum is run by as shrewd a manager as
there is in the business He learned some
time ago that the main support of the
theater comes from the women. If they
like play, the play succeeds; for their
husbands, sweethearts and escorts always
consult them before taking them to the
theater, and their preferences decide the
success of the house. Look at the men in
the picture-frames and you will see why
the matinees of the Lyceum are always
crowded. Three-fourths of the audience
is always composed of women, and that is
why that theater is one of the most sue
fessful in New York. There is an array Of
four professional male beauties, headed by
Herbert Kelley and brought up by Henry
Miller. These men are starred, billed and
photographed extensively. / read some
sort of a story the other day Of woman
who gave luncheon to lot of girls in
San Francisco recently, and in the middle
of the table were the pictures of these four
men banked with flowers. The women sat
around and admired the male beauties
during the feast. This sort of thing is
significant, because it is the result of the
well-matured and carefully plan
of man whose business it is to cater to
the amusement of the public"
/ recalled a scene | witnessed some time
ago at Days Theater. 1t was the time
that Wallack's company disbanded, and
the last performance was a matinee on Sat
urdary afternoon given in Days Theater.
The stage door extends out into Sixth
avenue, and it was surrounded by a crowd
of at least three hundred women who
J gathered there and pushed each other
eagerly as they watched the members OF
the company come out. They had all APP
peared and gone away quietly without any
excitement, until finally Kyrle Bellew APP
peared and posed for minute on the door
step. Now that l think of it, he is an
impressive specimen of the male beauty.
J He cast his eyes composedly over the sea