The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-12-23
AUSTRALIAN WOMEN.
Their Beauty Is Said to He Largely Arti-
fcial.

From Sydney, Australia, comes a
writer who has much to say of the
women of the antipodes The point
which struck this writer most forcibly
in Sydney was the extraordinary purity
and transparency of the complexion of
the ladies. ITO tell the truth he
writes, 81 had founded my ideas main
ly on the Australians one meets in Lon
don, under the wing of the various
smart ladies who repay hospitality or
carry out the marriage settlement by
taking the antipodean damsels about,
and | expected that the bush type of
beauty, or what we call the dairy maid
style. e., brilliant coloring, luxuri-
ant but rather coarse hair, exuberant
health, and Astounding strength
would prevail And, in fact, consider
ing that very few of even the best peo-
pie in Sydney can go back three gener-
ations without reaching the bush, it
might be expected that such would be
the case. On the contrary. however, I
found that the ma ority of the fashion
able beauties had peculiarly delicate
compilations, languid expressions, frag-
lie physique and die-away look in the
eyes which was more suited to the en-
ervated temperament of an old civiliza-
ton than the active vitality of new
world. So far, moreover, from seeing
the magnificent chevelures which had
expected, it was easy even for a novice
to detect that these ladies owed good
deal to their hairdresser This
was the case even among the young
women, and have noticed one lovely
creature who is we'll under thirty. but
who obviously wears a well frizzied
toupet to hide the deficiencies of home
production in front, and has reinforced
the defenses at the back with very
considerable draft of extraneous mat.
ter. But for her hairdresser she would
look as if she had been tonsured. The
mystery of this curious combination of
premature badness and unusual deli
cacy of complexion was explained to
me by one of the older ladies. She
said that the women were arsenic
eaters. They ate arsenic in order to
produce the aristocratic pallor and
languor which had noticed, and found
to their horror that another effect of
the drug was to make the hair drop
out Valuing their compilations above
their hair, however, they sacrificed the
one to the other, and in this, from
their point of view, she thought they
acted wisely, because the deficiency OF
hair can be artiticially supplied, and in
the long run beauty depends mainly
upon the complexion. What woman
will endure for her complexion may be
estimated by this and also by the
fact that these arsenic eaters rarely
live past forty-five. There is
no pleasure, moreover in the
consumption of the poison, as there is
in the case of morphia and opium. On
the contrary, it is nasty to the taste,
and produces slight internal pains and
cramps, which increase until they
cause death. The arsenic is made up
into dainty-looking caramels, which
fashionable danes will produce from
precious little bonbonniers and suck
quite openly, just as the American girl
chews gum or the English girl choco-
late. These insidious little sweets are,
like a good many other bad things.
made in Germany. The old lady told
me further that the arsenic question
was becoming quite burning one in
the Antipodes. When a man married
a young-looling, lovely creature
adorned with luxurious ringlets, he
was Disguised to find after the cere-
mony that she was really semi-bald,
prematurely enervated woman, who
was shortening her life to please her
own vanity and was incapable of full
filling the duties of mother to the de-
bilitated children which she brought
into the world. Moreover. the suffer
ing which she would go through in any
attempt to overcome this pernicious
habit was quite enough to make her
break down; if, indeed, she could be
persuaded to bear it at alL"-Modern
SpcietV