The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-02-02
ROSEBUDS OF SOCIETY.
IN MID-sEASON THEY BEGIN TO
SHOW THEIR THORNs.

You Would suppose, but Money
Bags Sometimes Fail TO Make a
Belle Out OF a Mediocrity Wall
Flower or Rose.
NEW York. Feb. About this time
look out for" tho announcement that the
debutantes are tired and are looking for
ward to the slowing of the wheels of social
gayety that will come with Ash Wednes-
day.
There is popular belief that TO be a de-
| butante is wearing business. This is a
fallacy. The debutante on the whole, has
an easy time. Compare her tolls with those
of charming little woman of my acquaint-
ance, not much past the debutante's age.
who goes to the ball, enjoys its brightness
and its glamour, and then, when tho car
riages are rolling homo, sits down in her
iinerY and writes two piquantly chatty
descriptions of the nights triumphs to ap-
pear in two morning papers. While the
bud is sleeping her beauty sleep my pretty
| friend is petting an 1S-months-old baby.
| Before the bud has opened her eyes and her
mouth for chocolate my friend is back in
newspaper row scribbltng special for IA
| Sunday edition.
| Compare the debutante with the society
man. The festivities which are her work
are his play. After he has danced until
sunrise he must cudgel his brains until sun
| set to find the wherewith to buy violats at
| $40 a bunch for her budship now, and an
| opera box, a carriage and an establishment
| in few seasons when she shall have con-
cluded that he is the most desirable partner
| for lfes waltz society eau furnish her at the
usual charges.
Compare the debutanta with her mother,
| who has shouldered the responsibility of the
| tea and carpet dance at which the lovely
young daughter has been presented to So
| ciety, after debating anxiously the question
whether after all she should not be kept
back another season until Madge and Dolly
| have had one more opportunity to get
| themselves transplanted from that portion
| of the social flower bed allotted to the fam
| lily. Mamma has ourried favor with the
| disagreeable Mrs. -, whose daughter is
| SO plain, but who is going to give some
of the SWEETEST dances OF the winter.
| She has lain awake nights planning
| to secure invitations and contriv-
| ing schemes to make her house agreeable to
| young men. She has arranged for fifty
| one bouquets for the buds first bail to top
| the forty-eight received by some other
| damsel. When she sweeps the battlefield
| with her opera glass she keeps one eye, on
| the enemy aud the other on the spoils, the
| genus homo, which she reckons in thres
/ sDsGtttS, tuB l4l)DhSlDle, LUt Dtt%slDia. anu
the desirable. Ii there is anybody VINO is
justified in pleading fatigee in the middle of
the season it is she who sits out every ball
ia the wearisome capacity of chaperon.
It's all a mistake 70 suppose that the bud
bears the brunt of the social season. It's
another mistake to suppose that there's any
particular necessity for the ceremony of
| presentation. American young women,
even of the international, fashiona ble
| type, are not kept in so carefully that when
| they come out the emergence is OF any
| especial significance. The cargo of rose
buds before it is dumped on the social mar
| ket is not an altogether unknown crop of
| tender blossoms To blush unseen is not "A
| species of reddening popular with the least
developed flowers Of this era. The girl who
has not been introduced has not been to a
ball, though this rule admits Of exceptions.
She may have danced at Newport or some
| other watering place, or she may even have
| been a belle for a season in Washington.
| The chances are she has belonged to
a dancing class" and has there met
| the exceedingly youthful men who, dur
ing the whole of her public career, will
form of necessity, even though she dubs
| them little boys the bulk of her dancing
partners. Very certainly she has dined on
| not too formal occasions with the family
and at the dinner table or Longing of an
off afternoon in her mothers receiving
| E3On OF t@I q HOuhS DhS cDAbIDl
| with the well preserved beaux OF past gene
rations who form the opposite extreme to
the cradle in McAllisterville and its social
| suburbs. She is not taken to the opera on
| first nights, but it's gay enough in her
| mothers box on some other occasion. To
| confine her as strictly to the nursery as is
done with the bread and butter English
| girl or the French jeune file is impossible.
| There are people who carry their daugh-
| tiers off to Europe at IA. Whom these little
exiles come home again at Is or 10 they
| need an introduction. Their accent-they
/ no longer speak good American-lf moth ing
else, makes them strangers. This sets the
| fashion. The girl who has been finished"
ia her own country must be presented with
| equal formali5y. The enlargIng of the So
| cial circle from four hundred to fourteen
| hundred has had one marked consequence,
| The rosebud market is overstocked. There
| is an introduction of daughters and nieces
| and country cousins which causes the
| bellies Of three or four seasons to shudder
| and TO marshall dsfiantly their charms The
| debutante, though her name is often a mis-
homer, is growing to be great and per-
| picking Institution.
OF course the debutante is always called
| pretty-when it Is to anybodys interest TO
see that she is doomed. And indeed, she is
oftener good looking than otherwise She
| must be a desperately plain individual who
/ cAQnOL Dc tTdnsIOFule4 DY Eun6 ana uya-
cinths and softly shaded lights and the
! flush of excitement into a creature fair to
| look on. The trouble with her Is that her
| good looks do not stay. 1t is not that she
fades. She is fed to well and groomed too
| carefully, not to hold her own. The chances
| are that physically she will for long time
improve, as the awkwardness disappears
| from her at first tall and ungainly figure,
| and she finds out what to do with her arms.
| TIE difficulty is that it ID only at first that
she has a thoroughly good time. As soon
as she begins to fight the bellies with their
own we pons and TO take part in social ri
| valries, there is something which comes into
her face aud mars il terribly.
At the second Patrarchs' ball there were
buds who were almost cross-looking. They
could hardly be supposed to have discovered
since the first Patrlarchs' that the world IS
hollow, aud that all our dolls are stuffed
with sawdust, much less could they be
taken for candidates for a nunnery. Never
theless some Of them have found out by
this time that they are buds not OF roses,
but Of wall flowers. Money viii sometimes
make belle out Of a mediocrity, but IL
cannot be relied on IN all instances.
The successful bud commonly remains
pretty through her first and sometimes her
| second season. Three seasons Is the allotted
number before marriage, and the number of
girls Of social position who reach this limit
without getting little hardness, some
thing which the enthusiastic newspaper cor
| respondent may call well-bred composure,