The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-14
MODERN DINNER TABLE.
The Rage for Decoration Over
whelming the Taste for Good
Things to Eat.
Sirloins and Saddles Give Place to
Gilt Cupids and Butterfly
Nets
Striking Things in the Methods Now In
vogue-Dolls ON the Table
Other Fads.

can favors, orchids Of orice and common
field flowers, combined with enough green
cry to furnish forth the material for re-
spectacle May-day festival.
The desire to satisfy two senses at one
and the same time, probably first inspired
men to eat their dinners at fowery decked
table, as it has lead others to spoil their
feasts with music or their music with feast
ing, which ever way one likes to put it.
What appears most striking in the decor
alive methods now in vogue is certain
failure in the sense of proportion, which is
becoming more pronounced each season
and is hurrying people into extravagances
about q reaction in favor of simpli city. 1t
was one thing to adorn dinner table artis
tically with flowers and fruit-although
fruit on the table now is hardly permissible
but it is another thing altogether to build
up with infinite pains and expense colossal
flies, squirrels aloft and rabbits below, bur
rowing under fower-covered faggots,
around which space is barely left here and
there for the plate of an unfortunate diner,
who struggles with trails of ivy dabbling in
his soup. and sprays of maidenhair and
mimosa bending into his wine glass, like
weeping willows around duck pond, while
he gets through his dinner with as uncom-
Portable 2 premonition Of earwigs and
creeping things as if he were assisting at
that most discor1posing of social enter
tainments, genuine picnic.
The evil does not seem likely to end here
however. We are warned of further devel-
opments in the immediate future. The
scheme of decoration is to undergo expan-
sion and to rise above the table and take in
its surroundings. The covering ceilings
with blooms fixed in wooden frames was
practiced with considerable effect at some
entertainments last season. Recently a
which, as part of the decoration, foated
gauze clouds, within whose folds birds and
butterflies were imprisoned.
It this fancy endure until next summer
we may expect many strange metamorphoses
to take effect in London dining rooms, and
terfered with by arbitrary restrictions being
imposed upon the color and fashion of the
ladies' dresses. Not long ago the introduc
ton of new form of menu card, in the
shape Of a ship in full sail inspired din
ner giver to carry out the idea Of it's integ-
table blue satin ship with the rigging out
lined with button roses, the lady guests be-
ing requested to attire themselves in blue
satin dresses, made nautical fashion, with
wreaths Of roses perched on one side Of the
head. In this case only tho daughters of
the house, whose style the costume probably
suited, were sufficiently impressed with the
solemnity of the farce to think it necessary
to dress up to the menu card.
1t is an American lady, domiciled in Lon
don and moving in its 'hupper suckles," to
PRODUCTION of dolls into the decoration of
~the dinner table-quaint automatic figures,
artistically dressed in silks and satins, pro.
polling wheelbarrows full of flowers or
jumping through hoops of roses. A bril-
liant conception was to represent a flower
market on the table, each stall being filled
with different flower, and presided over
by muslin-oapped and aproned dolls, with
pompadour skirts looped up over pink
satin.
This is terribly childish, but Paris has
originated follies as puerile, the novelty of
the henes sn wh9a has ost bssn
limitations Of antique armor, helmets and
gauntlets, handouts, baskets, swords and
spears. These are made to open, to hold
sweets and flowers, and, being disposed
about the table, interspersed with holly and
mistletoe, produce. it is said, an effect never
seen before. which, whether it be graceful
or not, appears to be the object most held
in view BY the hostess.
Very little indication of the extreme
length to which the decoration of the most
fashionable tables is carried is afforded by
the compositions that still take place at the
PAAAASAPoA A&OWOA buOW6 u Jl6 SUMMER sea.
son. The great guns of the table decorating
business-for il is business nowadays-
naturally hold aloof. Novelty, novelty.
novelty, however bizarre and inoonpruous.
is the incessant demand of their customers.
and both the florists and the ladies who have
taken up decorating professionally are 80
exercised in their ingenuity to invent new
combinations and appliances that they are
not likely to give themselves away by vast
ing the efforts of their genius upon the pub
lie which goes to flower shows at Regents
Park.
On the whole, it seems as if our modern
dinners. while less bulky than those of our
grandfathers. may be credited with show
ing more art in minor details. It is posi-
BILE. and most old commands will insist
upon it, that we do not get such noble
joints as in the o!den days. yet the kick
shaws, the sweets and side dishes, which
people did not call entrees in those days
which then generally came from the pastry
cooks round the corner, and were avoided
Of prudent people aAd laughed at by
Thackery and other social satirists-have
assuredly been improved out of recogni-
ton in the art of their preparation.
We do not, certainly, eat as much as we
used to do; or, at any rate, we DO not deem
it necessary to overp0wer the guest at our
table with the number and the vastness of
the dishes which we force upon his notice.