St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-07-21
| CHORUS GIRLS LIFE.
How She Spends Her Time When Off
the Stage.
SOME OF. HER FAULTS.
She Smokes Cigarettes and Talks
Slang, But Has a Womanly
Heart.

The life of the chorus girl is a mys-
terry to her humber sisters who only
see her from the front of the house. 1t
is not dark mystery by any means,
being full of the glare from the foot
lights, the simmer of calcium lights,
the flash and glitter of silken tights
and tinsel and paste jewelry.
But it is mystery, nevertheless, and
the average professional feminine
mind often catches itself wondering
what fills in the interval between the
fall of the curtain on one nights per-
Torrance and the moment when the
chorus girl makes her appearance with
the same set smile and the same statu-
esque pose on the following night. To
the minds of many this interval is filled
with continuous round Of gay cham
payne suppers, drives behind fast
teams, flirtations with Simpering adj
mirers and all manner of delightful and
perfectly shocking friyolities.
Fun Off the Stage.
The chorus girl does manage to get
plenty of fun cut of life when off the
stage, and she needs to, for her work on
the stage is of the hardest, dullest and
most monotonous kind. There is very
little pleasure i'll undressing and dress
ing three or four times an evening In
close, damp, stuffy rooms, down under
the stage: IN going through the same
pastures and acts and walks, and sing
ing the same notes, night after night,
until the whole thing becomes mechan-
ical, and ope's interest in the work
lapses into ones effort to keep from be-
coming mere stiff hgurehead on the
stage. Cannot the traditional wooden
smile and the set position of the hands
clasped in front be pardOned under such
circumstances?
Off the stage comes the reaction. The
chorus girl is nothing if not uncOnven-
tional. See her in her hours of ease
uncertain, coy and confoundedly hard
to please. That's because she's gener-
ally SO blase. Throw her into the COM
domestic woman, and the latter would
inevitably be shocked and scandaiized
beyond measure by her goings on.
Some Shocking Things.
But the chorus girl may, by virtue of
her independent position, do many
things which the world would regard as
Not only this, but the chorus girl
doesn't care much what the world
thinks and says about her, anyway, and
so does pretty much as she pleaSes,
which makes her life all the more OF a
mystery to that straight-laced element
of the community which does everything
by artificial law Of its own making. and
expects everybody else to do the same.
The chorus girl is inclined to smoke
cigarettes and drink wine and other
StimulantS. This she does to relieve the
nervous tension which is necessary
outcome of her life on the stage. She
does not always enjoy the best OF physl-
cal health. This could hardly be ex-
pected. what with being up half the
night and sleeping half the day, and
playing the very deuce with her system
generally.
She is an Athlete.
But she realizes the result of this con-
tinual drain upon her physical system
and if she is a girl of good common
sense. as many of them are. she takes
means to forestall it. When she jumps
out of bed in the forenoon there must
first be plunge in bath, with sub
seouent brisk rubbing down. Then
comes a half-hour'S honest work with
the dumb bells or the Indian clubs.
This must be done to keep the figure de-
veloped and in proper trim. Most cho-
rus girls are athletes to a greater Or less
extent. Many of them pull an oar well;
every fencing master has some OF them
among his pupils; not few OF them
can hold up pair OF gloves and come
I'D smiling after a Knockout with the
adeptness and dogg edneSs of a veteran
of the ring. The iOOtpad who attempts
to rob lonely chorus girl in a dark
street is very likely to get more than he
he bargains for.
The chorus girl is not literary char
acter. She may be able to pass judg-
ment on the comparative merits of
Ouida's --latest" and Rider Haggard's
last" or she may read Kipling',s
sketches because everybody else is read
ing them, but Browning is a barren
waste, Howells an undiscovered coun-
try and Goethe an unSolYed paradox to
her.
She Has a Big Heart.
Like every one whose views are broad
ened by constant contact and friction
with the world at large. the chorus girl
has big heart. Her not oyer-plethOrlc
pocketbook has habit of decreasing In
size where an unfortunate stage-sister
is concerned, or where some Of the odds
and ends of the worlds great mass of
misery come within her view.
Not long ago in Chicago poor, timid,
little, half-staryed girl. who had been
selling papers on the street, was knocked
down by a cable car and her arm broken.
| Two handsomely dressed women who
| happened to be Oh the car at the time
| instantly alignted. One Of them pushed
her way through the crowd and knelt
| beside the insensible little form, taking
the heavy head into her lap. The other
| called a cab, and the two drove away
with the injured child. The little one
was taken to their lodgings, nursed with
| all the tenderness of true womanly de-
| votion, and given such care as she had
| probably never before dreamed of.
| Those two women were chorus girls.
| When we come to look closely into
| her character the chorus girl is pretty
good sort of member of the social field,
after all. She may be slangy and triv-
olous. gay and indecorOus, and all that,
| but at the true core and center she Is
| Woodworking and honest, free
| thoughted and independent. tender and
| merciful and a thorough woman.
If this latter qualification could be
more readily recognized by the public
| at large, one highly erroneous delusiOn
| would be forever smashed. and of the
| barriers between the stage and society
| torn down.