Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-06-19
WHY THE GIRLS FADE.
Shirley Dare Gives Her Sisters
Some Excellent Advice.
Errors of Which Many Women Arc Guilty
Late Hours in Girlhood A Timely
Attack on the Oatmeal Supersti-
tion-Wholesome Food

The life of any ordinary woman from
fifteen to thirty has no possible chance
! for the storing of strength, which is the
| essential of loneliness and attraction.
| writes Shirley Dare in the Philadelphia
| Press. 1t is paying out of vitality as
| fast IS it can be made, tasking and
| taxing of lifted nerves, stinted of air,
| sunshine, rest and healthy stimulus A
| schoolgirl rises to an eight o'clock
| breakfast or later. The sun has been
shining three hours and the rest is at
| its freshest. but she has no thought for
run out of doors, which would tone her
for the day. She was up till eleven the
night before, as most girls of fourteen
are, at some trifing entertainment, or
| merely sitting round on the doorsteps
| or in the parlor chatting with chance
corners.
4 mother who wished to insure her
health and good looks would insist that
the child should be in bed as soon
after nine each night as possible, allow
ing only ono night out week until she
is eighteen. l may as we'll stop here
and close my suggestion, for tho outcry
OF mothers and daughters against early
sleep is general and overpowering.
There is iittlo use to talk about women's
failing, for few of them have freshness
any longer, but are wizened and thin at
thirteen, what with too many school
books. too much candy, and grown-up
hours ana habits generally. Of course
they fade.
The breakfast awakenS curiosity.
First comes oatmeal-pasty, inferior
g
man or shepherd who works his food off
by hard labor in the open air all day,
but very far from fit food for a slender,
nervous girl or boy at school. The oat-
meal superstition is q hard ono to up
root in the minds of housekeepers who
have made it a part of their routine and
hate to take up anything else. Farmers
do not feed oats to their horses unless
they are at hard work, because the grain
is too heating for them and breeds dis
ease in animals unless thrown off by
vigorous muscular efforts daily.
Oatmeal, especially of the finer sorts,
in which the houseleeper delights,
often passes digestion in 4 crude shape
as masses of starch, which clog the body
without nourishing it. Dry, crisp oat-
cake is much better taken than boiled
oatmeal, and is far moro palatable, its
oil and starch being changed in baking
Clean cracked wheat is the food for ner-
vous, studious or housekeeping women
and children, containing as it does the
phosphates needed and the coarse char
acter which aids the organs in their
work.
The fine fours and foods of the day
are one great cause of the early deterior-
ton of the race. If we wished artfully
to eliminate every particle of nutrition
from food it would only be necessary to
carry the process of grinding. boiling,
and refining a littlo further. In my
own experience and that Of the most in
telligent literary people, it is not posi-
BILE to change from sound, coarse food,
containing all the wheat, for one day
without loss of strength and nervous
tone, while the difference in complex
ion in a single month challenges admir-
alton from all the women about. The
men don't say anything, but they notice
it all the same.
/ know that ordinary women scout and
cavil at this doctrine. They will have
it that their mothers were strong and
good looking on white bread and fried
potatoes and steak, and it is all nom
sense to fuss so much about cracked
wheat and coarse bread when they are
just as well without it. They send to
the bakers for bread five days in seven
and put their oatmeal to cook for the
breakfast opening course, to be swilled
down-there is no other word-with
milk and sugar just before bcefsteak or
the ham and eggs.
Oatmeal paste, half cooked. city milk
and sugar! Why not serve ice-cream be-
fore tho meats? Let the wheat, caro-
fully cooked tho night before, be served
with juicy steak. The general habit of
flooding the stomach with milk and
sweets arrests digestion at once and i'm
pairs the value of tho food taken after.
All these things tend to early dropping
and decay of the human flower. Our
women are half-scarved. 20 tell the
truth.
1t is useless to say any thing about
the formal, conventional lives women
lead, which make them prudes and pre-
tenders in society and Vixcns when they
are themselves: which restrain the play
of wholesome, natural instincts and ac-
tivitics. but train them for perpetual
theatrical exhibition. Social life in
America is fast becoming a mere inter
lacing of clubs, beginning with the
dancing class, tho girls friendly society
and the school literary clubs, going on
to the whist or euchrc club, which meets
at tho houses of members to play for
prize.