Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-23
The Late Hours in GirlhOOd is
Where the Evil Begins.
In School and at the Breakfast Table.
Many Women Half Starved-Eyils
in Modern Social Life.
Jealousy q Cause of Early Fading-The Injury
That Worry VIII BriBg-What Woman
Can do and Cannot do.
CCopyrie hted, 1897

Inc lie OF any OIuIudIy "OLhoA 1870
fifteen to thirty has no possible chance
for the storing of strength, which is the
essential of liveliness and attraction. 1t
is paying out of vitality as fast as it
can be made, tasking and taxing Of
il-fed nerves, stinted of air, sunshine,
rest, and healthy stimulus.
A school girl rises to an O'Clock
breakfast or later. The sun has been
shining three hours and the air is at its
freshest, but she has no thought for
run,out of doors. which would tone her
for che day. She was up till II the
night before, as most girls of fourteen
are, at some trifing entertainment or
merely sitting round, on the dooTsteps or
in the parlor, chatting with chance COM
ers. A mother who wished to insure her
health and good looks would insist that
the child should be in bed as soon after
9 each night as possible, allowing only
one night out week until she was
eighteen. 1 may as well stop here and
close nv suggestions, for the outcry of
mothers and daughters against early
sleep is general and overpowerlng.
There is little use to talk about women's
fading, 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 and habits generally. OF course
they fade.
olyon
comes oatmesl-pasty, inferior stuf-in
cooked fit perhaps for ploughman 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 oatmeal su-
perstition is a hard one to uproot IN the
minds of housekeepers, who have made
it 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 disease in
animals unless thrown off by vigorous
muscular effort daily. Oatmeal, espec-
ially of the finer sorts in which the house,
keeper delights, often passes digestion in
a crude shape as masses of starch, which
clog the body without nourishing it. Dry,
crisD oatcake is much better taken than
boiled oatmeal, and is far more palata-
BILE, its oil and starch being changed in
baking. Clean cracked wheat is the
food for nervous, studiOus, or house
keeping WOMEN and children, containing
as il does the phosphates needed and the
coarse character which aids the organs
in their work. The fine fiours and foods
of the day are one great cause Of the
early deterioration Of the race. If we
wished artfully to eliminate every par
only be necessary to carry the process Of
grinding, boiling, and refining little
further.
In my own experience, and that of the
most intelligent literary people met, it is
not possible to change from sound, coarse
food, containing all the wheat, for one
dav without loss of strength and nervous
tone, while the difference in complexion
In a single month challenges admiration
from all the women about. The men
don't say anything, but they notice 1t 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
nonsense to fuss so much about cracked
wheat and coarse bread when they are
lust as well without it. They send TO the
bakers for bread five days in seven, and
nut their oatmeal to cook for the break
fast opening course, TO be swilled
down-there is no other wOrd-with
milk and sugar just before the beefsteak
or the ham and eggs. Oatmeal paste,
half cooked, city milk and sugar! Why
not serve ice cream before the meats?
Let the wheat, carefully cooked the
night before, be served with the juicy
steak. The general habit of flooding the
stomach with milk and sweets arrests di-
gestion at once, and impairs the value
of the food taken after. All these things
tend to early dropping ana decay of the
human flower. Our women are half
starved, to tell the truth.
It is useless to say anything about the
formal, conventional lives women lead,
which make them prudes and pretenders
in society and viXens when they are
fhems elves; which restrain the play Of
wholesome, natural instincts and aotivi-
ties but train them for perpetual the
atrical exhibition. Social life in Amer
lea is fast becoming a mere interlacing
of clubs, beginning with the dancing
class, the girls friendly society and the
school literary clubs, going on to the
Whist or euchre club, which meets at
the houses OF members 20 play for prize.
Il is measure of the degree in which
competition enters our social life that
BOYS and girls OF sixteen cannot meet
once a week to play euchre or "Ruth-
ors' without a trumpery fve-cent prize
for the winner. You may smile, but
this buTgeois, commercial idea of ego
ing for what you can get, eats the life
out OF society and makes it little better
than a minor Monte Carlo, with favors
for the germ an and dinner favors or
card prizes in view. More than this, it
eags away the bloom Of women by the
incessapt emulation and Irritation it en-
tails. Generous sentiments and free
dom from miserable small jealousies
tend as direc IL to beauty and Tong life
az fresh air aud pleasant food. The sor-
did, unspeaksble jealousy of women, bad
enough anywhere. inevitable in organ
szed clubs and societies where honors are
palpable and attainable by recognized
steps, undoubtedly has as much to do
with their early fading as physical
causes.
The moral causes admitted, mental
deficiency has hardly less TO answer for.
Not only the commonplace expression of
women whose thoughts only reflect the
dining table and the OasfrV h0ard prOfast