Morning journal and courier., 1893-02-04
4 convenient additional pocket

These small muffs were still the mode In
| ITO, for In March of that year Joseph
Addison begins paper in "The Specta-
tor" by saying that he had received let
| ter requesting him "to be eatirlcal on the
little muffs that are in fashion" He tells
us again, in the following year, THAT all
| the women of fashion were cutting their
old muffs or retrenching them according
to the little model that had lately come
| among them" These continued to bs the
| prevailing mode through nearly three
fourths of the eighteenth century, and fur
| was discarded for time in favor of fan
cifally made affairs of silk and frills and
ribbon.
Toward the close of the century the muff
took on more ample proportions, aud fur
was in use again. Two famous portraits
at least, give faithful representations of
the muff of that period; Sir Joshua Rey-
nold's picture OF the "Girl with the Muff, "
and Gainsborough's portrait of Mrs. Sid
dons.
With the beginning of the nineteenth
century they grew ever larger and larger.
The most desirable muff was of ermine
and of a s.ss that must have been some
what inconvenient to carry, but before the
years that begin with an 1S had half run
their course, fashion decreed that muffs
must be cut down again. So the ecouomi-
cal women of that day cut aud sewed and
made over, as their great grsndmothers
had done before them; small muffs re.
turned, and with only slight vsri-
ations in their dimensions have ;held
their own ever since. Some specimens
of the capactous great -grandmotherly muff
were long preserved in rural homes for the
sake of this good they had done and for the
delight of the children who, playing In at
tics on rainy days, drew them out of their
canphor-s scented hiding places; bore them
proudly on imaginary stage coach jour
neys; strutted and balanced with them
upon their heads as drum majors caps;
exhibited them as lions in mensgerie, or,
armed with sticks and wooden guns, hunt
ed them mercilessly, as grizzly bears.
1t is prophesied that, with other long
banished fashions, the enormous muff is
about to return. Another winter may see
women arrsyed in gowns with short
waists and long shoulder seams, bal
loon sleeves, coaiscuttle bonnets, scarfs
with long ends falling to the hem
of the skirt, aud muffs large as bass
drums. An old fashion book of 1898 de-
scribas a costume which may bo revived In
less than hundred years from that date.
"a large bonnet, worn on the back of the
head, forms half circle above the face;
rich cord and tassels are its sole sdorn-
ment. The gown, perfectly plain and with
out trimming, has moderate train. The
round bodice is neither long nor short. A
scarf with long ends nesrly touching ths
feet, and huge muff which desoends to
within al inoh or two of the knees, COM
p!etes this ample and becoming costume"
If we must progress backward" as
in matters of dress rumor says we
are about to do, let US 60 back
far enough to find costume which
will be "simpls and becoming" The
great muff will surely be comfortable
in down-below zero weather; it will be a
convenient receptacle for small psroels
and the like, as the lining can be fitted up
with pockets; aud thsn, when fashion
veers again, 1t can ba cut over and remade
into small ones enough to warm the finger
tips of whole family.
"cRUMBs SWEPT Up"
In Smyrna, Turkey, there is circle of
Kings Daughters actively engaged in the
practical charitable work which this wide
spread order Is bound to do. By sewing,
embroidering, scrubbing floors, backing
shoes, doing anything, in short, by which
they could earn money, they have besn
enabled to distribute rice and fuel among
the poor, to visit the sick, providing them
with medicine and comfort; they have
paid rents, helped to educate little chill
dren and done many similar acts of char
ity. On holidays they divide into COM
panies and visit the homes of the very
poor, with trlhtng but very welcome gifts
for all the little children.
1t is said of the favoiite English writer
Ada Ellen Bailey, we'll known to the read
ing public as "Edns Lysll," that she ia one
of the most retiring and home-ioviug of
women. She has a horror of publicity
and vsry little taste for society, literary or
otherwise. This may be partly accounted
for By her delicate health, which never al
lows her to devote definite time to liter
AIRY work, and frequently obliges her to
give it up entirely. She has quiet home
at Easthonrne, but is often obliged 20 seek
some other climate for change Of air, or to
rest after the exhaustion of her work.
Her stories are all written with pur pose.
donovan" made marked impression
wherever read, and is perhaps her best
work. The profits she received from the
very large sale of this story were spent
upon a peal of bells, which, named from
the principal characters of the novel, send
out sweet and far reaching tones from the
belfry of an Eastbourne church.
Here are some queer but genuine deflni-
tions taken from school examination pa
pers. The lady who collected large num-
ber of them from the original documents
received u prizs from the University Cores
pondsnt for the best collection of "school-
boy mistskea,."'
is divided into several parts by feshy
petition. These psrts sre called right
artillery, left artillery, and so forth"
"Fossils are those remains of plants and
animals which keep best when left to them
selves. In some rocks we find the fossil
footprints Of fishes"
'tMetamorphic rocks are rocks that con-
tain metaphors "
"a Republican is sinner mentioned in
the Bible"
"Hydrostatics fs when a mad dog bites
you. 1t Is called hydropbobia when dog
is mad and hydrostatics when a man
catches it "
"Perkin Warbeck raised a rebellion in
the reign of Henry VIII. He said he was
the son of prince, but he was really the
son of respectable people,"
MIS-. Anita Newoomb McGee is one of
the women who has earned the proud dis
tinction of being called a Fellow. She Is
the daughter of Professor Simon New
comb, the noted astronomer. Her edu-
cation began in Washington; afterwards
she spent some time at Newman college,
Cambridge, England, then a year at the
university at Geneva and another year in
Berlin In company with her father she
has visited all the great observatories of
Europe, and was much with him when he
was supervising the grinding of the
lenses for the great Lick Telescope.
Then che married Mr.. w. J. McGee,
the geologist and expert on matters
concerning seismic disturbances, better
known as earthquakes, and him che
accompanies upon geological expeditions,
making long journeys on horseback. How
she found time to study medicine and
graduate from Columbia University, to
work in Johns Hopkins hospital and to do
a good deal of writing on Anthropology
and other light subjects, 1t Is not for ordi-
nary women, who have only twenty-four
hours in their day and sleep away few
of those, to understand. But we will sgree
that she deserves to be fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement
of Science, the second woman elected to
that honor, and member of the Anthrop-
illogical Society of America. For a woman
still in her youth, with SO much brain, en-
ergy and persistence, there ia open wide
field of endeavor, aud we who are not 80
gifted can be generousi enough to admire
and to hope for the day when such as she
shall bs the representative and not the ex-
trsordinary American woman. HILARY.
FASHION NOTES.