St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-01-15
STORIES OF THE STREET.

o1On1EiS VT ne y i NEE lie
Business is dull just now and shoppers are
few and far between, so you can prowl
around town to your hearts content and en-
joy confidential little conversations with as
many clerks as you please without having
the altogether awful eye of the floor walker
light upon you. The clerks are not tired
enough these days to be ill-natured, and they
seem really TO enjoy answering questions.
There's no better way of reading charac
ter than by fitting Shoes" maintains Wa
basha street shoe clerk people display
their little foibles and oddities more here i'll
the shoe store than anywhere else on EARTH"
And wheu had sufficiently assimiated this
statement he went on to tell me about the
differences between men customers and
women customers. The vanity of men, he
says, does not lie in the size OF their shoes.
but in the fit. They really don't care whether
their feet are fours or tens. but their shoes
must fit like ticks jacket. Now, women
want their feet to look small and narrow,
and if shoe is small 1t may fit as lnartistical-
" as it pleases. The average woman in st.
Paul-and even if our Kentucky cousins do
stand aghast at the statement we are not
ashamed of it-wearS a No. 4.
The spring shoe is already out for women.
1t is a square-toed, -heeled shoe, with
straight across patent leather tip. Pointed
tips are hopelessly out of date, and if you
can persuade your feet not to rebel at long,
narrow shoe of aristocratic proportions, you
are of the number of the fortunate. The
stylish shoe for men is foolish-looking ar
rangement, called the Piccadilly. The sole
is so bent that the shoe walks pigeon-toed,
and the toe is as pointed as can be. Across
the vamp, just between the pepper box lid
tip and the lacing, are four carefully placed
creases, put there for no reason under the
shining sun, except that it's the style.
The cheerful recklessness with which men
and women make the blindest of expert
ments with their internal mechanisms is won
derful 20 behold, In these days of la grippe
which our various rural contemporaries.
with more good will than knowledge of
French. call 1.-The la grippe"-the man is not
TO be found who does not take himself in
hand at the first premonitory symptom. He
buys quiniue and anti pyrene and anti-fel-
rine, and goodness knows what else, and he
takes OF each what seemeth best to himself.
Whisky-weil, whisky is just a foregone
conclusion. It's dangerous, of course, but
few people die-not of the disease, but of the
lavish and utterly ignorant use of remedies.
Nearly everybody, too has some particularly
efficacious preventative of the malady, which
he pins his faith to: but when all's said and
done, the man is best off who does not worry,
but pays close attention to his business and
his general health. He may have the grip,
and he may not, but in any case, he's not
worried into 1t.
Of course. everybody remembers jolly
Belle Hamilton, of the Wilbur Opera COM
pany, so the dear st. Paul public will be in
terested in the remarkable story Detroit
paper tells of her. 1t solemnly asserts that
she bas just joined the company. and that at
her first appearance i'll tights week ago, the
sight of twenty-five young men from her old
home, Saginaw. seated i'll the front row and
wearing skull caps SO embarrassed her that
she tainted. Now, in point of fact this is
not her first season. nor her second, nor yet
her third, and her appearance has always
been in tights, SO while the story is
very readable one, 1t is not even
approximately true. Miss Hamilton is very
charming, but not new to the stage. One
rather remarkable thing about her is that she
does not and will not sing note. although
she belongs TO an opera company. The
story referred to says she thinks of leaving
the stage, which thing the gods forbid Belle
Hamilton-or Belle Halstead, which is her
real name-is a delightful little body, and
has withal clever way of being most thor
oughiy written up by infatuated newspaper
men wherever she goes.
Speaking Of things theatrical. there was
nomore interested woman in the audience
at shenandoah Wednesday afternoon than
Pauline Hall, the comic opera divinity. She
seemed to enjoy the play quite as if she had
never seen it before. and doubt if she had.
5 for theatrical people, strange as it may seem,
see fewer plays than any other class of peo-
pie. 1t is only occasionally that they have
an opportunity to see matinee, and when
they can, they always rush to the theater,
impelied suppose, by much the same in
stinct as that which chains a murderer fas-
cinated, to the scene of his crime.
From the theater to the church seems like
great stride, yet when you consider that the
one quite frequently eXerts as strong an in
fuence for good as the other, you will par
don me for mentioning the free reading room
at the Peoples church in this connection
Like everything else in that church's dis
public On its tables are fifty or sixty of the
leading periodicals, and strangers are always
welcome. thought to be largely patronized,
and when the idea becomes fixed in the pub
lie mind that the place exists, it undoubtedly
will be patronzed.
o
Iwonder if women will ever learn discre-
ton of tongue in public places? Women in
the street cars at downtown restaurants at
the theater and everywhere else. converse
with each other with absolute Indifference to
the presence of Others Now. in restaurant
last night, sat at table with three other
women. Two of them came in together, and
chatted confdentiallv, quite as if the other
woman and 1 were cigar store dummies.
Finally their conversation focused itself OH
certain young woman, whose course of con-
duet they disapproved heartily They gave
her particular fits for nearly everything
you can thnk of, in unsparing
terms. The other woman was fdgety. Her
knife and fork fairly twitched with anger
AT last one of the takers, switching off the
main subject began, And she has a sister
here, too. She lives" and the other woman
rose, and in the preternaturally calm tone a
woman uses only when her tongue is fairly
paralyzed with rage. said, This is her ad-
dress" and left that altogether aStounded