The evening world., 1890-06-04
Queer Uses Of Perfumes and Drugs
Among Women Of Wealth.
| Devices to Enjoy the Pleasures
Of lntoxIcatIon In Secret.
Innocent-Looking Tooth Wash and
Dainty Scents That Conceal Much.

viragoes Of Bonnet lane and Cherry
alley.
We are merciless In our condemnation
Of the unfortunate mothers who pawn
their shoes and bedding for drink, and
l who in their delirium murder their chill
dren and strangle their babes. but are
either ignorant of or indifferent TO the
| fact that on Murray Hill and Fifth avenue
exists q form of dipsomania no less fatal,
no less disgraceful and degrading. and
far less eIcusable than the viciousness of
the wretched creatures famished in body
and starved in soul.
! The only difference between the two Is
that of drapery. Poverty has no cloak
for her ain. while fashion Is heavily
screened, daintily yelled and carefully
protected by the strong arm of respecta-
bility.
One goes to the dramshop with O tin
basin for the fiery spirits that consume
health and ~womaphood, while the other
| slyly tipples in her bath or boudoir. or
/ with her nerves for an excuse is artif-
cially stimulated by costly and powerful
drugs.
The world knows the besotted creature
lat q glance, but the secret of the idle,
aimless society leader is shared only by
the physician and druggist. She does
not go to the decanter for the nerve
bracing tonic. Her position would not
permit it. She cannot afford to have her
breath polluted, her eyes made bleary or
bloodshot, her face inflamed or her nose
Redeemed. However weak she may be
morally, she has beer two well schooled to
outrage taste. It is not the wine mer-
chant who profits by the tipping of fash
ion, but the uptown chemists who fill the
vinaigrettes Of silver and crystal with the
medicated lotions and stimulating salts;
who supply the fragrant Egyptian cigar
cites and the aromatic Turkish tobacco,
and who concentrate into infnitesimal
form the insidious cocaine, morphis and
chloral and the pungent sal volatile. that
sets the blood pumping through the veins,
fires the fancies and brightens the wits'of
the habitual patron.
l The dilettante inebriate has her eau de
vim as we'll as her cologne and Floren-
tine waters she has her red lavender.
medicated camphor ice; she has spirits
of cardamoms, opium pills, and. when
everything else is exhausted, spirits of
l%audanum to produce the exquisite BRAIN
xeeling that steals away the senses and
wells the world with the hazy mist of
Intoxication.
Every druggist knows why a certain
tooth wash prepared bya well known west
side dentist. has had such q phenomenal
sale. Now and then these pill people get
chatty and by q little memory shaking
are able to figure up individual sales
showing enough tooth wash purchased by
certain customers to cleanse the dentine
of q tribe of carnivora.
It Is characteristic of clubmen when
they entertain the fair sex to stock the
toilet tables with perfumes. extracts and
waters as well as rice powder and rouge.
1t is also a matte; of remark that the lib
eral gentlemen have more thnn once been
puzzled to account for the disappear
Ance of the bottled scents, On
n occasion there was more than the
usual amount of speculation, which inter
est fastened the next entertainment of a
Fifth avenue club. As usual the toilet
cruets were filled to the stopper; when the
reception ended they were still filed.
Examination proved that the original
preparations had been replaced by cool, |
clean water from the faucet.
Ask any Of the big grocers in the vicinity
of Central Park il there is much profit in
the toilet waters and sweet essences they
carry, and the response will be q bland
smile. Parenthetically, it is mot considered
good form either for a lady to wear per-
fumes. These devices, it must be remem-
bored, are not common. for the reason
that 1t costs money to get drunk ON ex-
tracts of chypre, white lilac or jasmine
that costs 81. 25 a bottle or &C per pint.
Another resource to which the fashion
able tippler is driven is the alcoholic vapor
bath. With q headache. a threatening
cold or imaginary rheumatism my lady
sits in an elaborate tea gown and buries
her face in the mouth of a rubber bag OF
small bowl filled with blazing brandy or
heating alcohol and water. Inhaling the
spirit fumes a delicious sense of drowsi-
ness is produced not unlike the ecstasy
enjoyed in fuller measure by the con-
drmed drunkard.
Still another unhealthy form of fashion
able dissipation is to be found in the bon
bon tray. There are brandy cherries.
ave of which win suffice to make the
average m giddy, and a quarter of a
pound completely destroy her senses.
The drop" candy used to contain wine
and resembled q cherry in size. Now the
powerful liqueurs are used. and the
sugar-plums favored with absinthe,
maraschino or kirsch that an ordinary
b~OnbOnniere will hold are as = solacmg"
IS anything in the line Of ''tonicsn or
"sedatiVes."
These alcoholic CONNECTIONS are TO be
found at every course dinner, and the
spectacle of sedste ladies in a state of
semi-insensibility is not uncommon, how
disgusting.
We haze all heard about the tea a Ia
R~sss with its stih bit of old bourbon, of
the eggnog and run punch served at
afternoons, of the Claret cup and soft
shell crab luncheon that filled the lounges
and couehes of cafe and har With