Los Angeles herald., 1891-10-11
How a Man Always Looks
in Fancy Dress.
And His Humorous Ideas on
Home Decorations.
Those Favored Mortals with Com
plexiOns of Roses and Cream.
A Decoction for Summer Tan-English
Things Ugly and Useful-The New
Rest Cure-Ten Times Younger,
Stronger and Happier than
Yesterday.
Special correspondence to the HERALD.

SAN Francisco, Oct. 8, 1891.
What's the reason man always looks
such silly in fancy dress?
They're holding Kermess out at the
Mechanics pavilion this week. It's a
very swagger affair, and there are
booths and pretty flowers and pretty
girls on every side. But the men
hideous is the only word
1 saw a tall, gawky youth arrayed
gorgeously as dashing Spaniard, and
he wore spectacles. Spectacles and a
sombrerol Why on earth didn't he get
himself up as a glow-worm He was
just the figure for that ferocious bird of
prey. But no he wanted to be romantic,
and he was. The most daring realist
could see nothing available in him.
Take my advice, good friends of the
male sex, and let the women do the
fancy dressing.
The Kirmess, by the way, is sweet
charity affair.
wv
One of those unconscious humorists
that writes for home decorative maga-
zines has announced gravely that
bleached cow-tails are the most esthetic
thing in curtain-loops. "The end is
tasseled, says this oracle, land the
effect is charming"
We shall be trimming portieres with
grinning sleeps heads, and decorating
mantels with pigs feet polished and
gilded, soon.
x%x
The same kind OF oracle says, with
due solemnity, that the old fashioned
lined skirts are coming in again. "The
drapery," says he-it must be he-I
don't believe woman could invent such
things-"the drapery is each breadth
lined and sewed in with the lining, in
stead of being hung on foundation
skirt"
We might as well go back to hoops
and have done with it.
*x*
Here's good receipt for the summer
tan. Take good green, juicy cucum-
Der, and pound it with wooden mortar
till you get all the juice out. Then put
it in pint bottle half full of elder how
er water, put in two tablespoons of
cologne, half an ounce of tincture of
benzine, and then fill the flowing bottle
with gin. 1t sounds complicated, but it
isn't. Wash your face in hot water at
night, and then apply this decoction.
1t is a good plan to dash your face
with cold water after the hot, just for
the reaction. You'll have a smooth,
soft, glowing skin if you'll do this, and
do it faithfully. You'll look precisely
the same as you do now, if you only do
it once or twice a week, whenever you
don't know what else to do.
*x*
A good skin needs as much care as
fretful baby. There are a few favored
mortals with compilations of roses and
cream, who never look at their complex
ions. Girls who eat candy, and don't
exercise, and do everything on earth to
make frights of themselves. But they
can't do it. Their skins are naturally
perfect. Unfortunately, that kind OF a
skin is very scarce.
~
Those little English sunshades are
coming in again, by the way. Carriage
parasols, mean. They're ugly as they
can be, and very awkward, but they are
useful when the sun shines as gaily as it
does in these days.
English things usually are both ugly
and useful. Ever notice it?
#*x
And now it's the rest cure. Some one
must spend every instant of very busy
life, thinking up different kinds Of
cures. Some are very clever and inge-
nious, too.
This last is the best thing that some
one has found yet.
Every one knows all about the vaca-
ton, the change of scene, the absence
from worries, and all that kind of thing.
Those are the tonics that an intel
ligent physician always prescribes
when you go to him for
Something to carry you through
a trying ordeal. It's tri1e discourag
ing to be told that change of scene is
the only thing in the wide, wide world
that will keep you out of the hospital,
when your youngest son is down with
the measles. your servants are leaving,
your husband is troubled with business
worries, and YOUR maiden aunt is COM
ing on visit.
But this new rest cure isn't that kind.
You just put aside one twenty-four
hours in every ten days, and you say to
yourself, "On this day, l restl" Then
you do it. You go to bed, end you stay
there. You have your breakfast in bed,
you have your luncheon in bed,
and you have your dinner from a
tray. You read jolly little book few
minutes and then you doze. When you
wake up you eat bunch of grapes. You
don't let a human being cross your
threshold, except the benefcient being
that brings the aforesaid tray. You let
the door bell ring, and the cable cars
clang. You won't let single worry en-
ter your mind. You just have lovely
lazy time of it. When you get up the
next day, your ten years younger, ten
times stronger, and ten times better
natured.
Now all these ten times mean that you
are Just ten times more able to fight the
battles of life. The woman you detested
yesterday seems quite an amiable being
to you today. The servant whose stu
pidity distracted your quiet beyond
endurance, before you took your