Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-06-02

racer flying the French colors, you ma,
guess she has a freight as frail as any east
ern slave ship ever bore. Only these nynphi
are witty. When one pretends to climb
mast and make an exhibition for the philo
sophie seamen she will cry: "Now watcf
me. I'm an English girl. oh. how / love tn,
sea!' AS for the rest French women sci
dom learn the right name for q single bloch
or rope. Their interest is in what new
things they get to eat on board.
With fencing II is different. Its exercise
is private. done in good faith. out Of old
French habit. Skating each year becomes
q more and more Partisan amusement; not
on the winter ice alone, which seldom lasts
more than a week, but on real ice, though
srtificially created, in such Kinks as the
Pole Nord and the new Ice Palace The
Palais de Glace. indeed, has become a very
nest of fashion. At the last Mi-Careme its
fancy>dress assembly. all on skates, had
mere of the pink OF wealth and taste than
the great Opera ball. 1t is true that of a
morning the Palais de GIace is patronized
by young girls of good family, accompanied
to fight against the richer demi-monde, who
are much more of an attraction. The young
girl bites her lip with irritation when Mile
Emilienne d'Alencon. Mile. Otero. and Mile
Lame de Pougy come by gliding. So here
again the demi-monde. well-dressed, we'll
hammered gay, audacious, work to monopo-
lie the mems attention and outshine the
married lady and the jeune personne So
ySuhS Shls llIlu more pressure In their
skating than at a public subscription ball
accompanied by unique drawbacks
II il were not for the bicycle one might be
tempted to pronounce that the practical
emancipation of the French girl from the
hideous narrowness of her first twenty
years is rather likely to come through the
politics of the woman's rights deyelopers
dim hope) than through any spontaneous
growth OF outdoor sports. But with the
bicycle a whole new vista opens
A new class has been tapped by the ma
chine, the lower middle class. which here
tofore had no real chance at sport Living
always, however comfortably. in cramped
apartment houses the bicycle makes a strong
appeal to mothers and daughters as We'll
as to sons and fathers. The cheapness of
the bicycle and the temptations IL offers 10
these fafisians who adore the country all
the more because they do not often see it
combined with the giamor of an English
to the wheel.
All the world Of employees has welcomed
the bicycle. With IL they get i'm actual
touch with country nfe the roads, the viii
lages, the fields. 1t is pleasanter than the
regulation Sunday railway trip out 10 some
small town, with its aimless walk around
provincial streets out to a weary wood. TO
sit there blankly. feeling out of place and
cramped by city shoes and garments. wish
ing vainly for q carriage. To all this world
Q, commercial employees and government
clerks are added large continents YEARLY
from the upper middle classes Partsians
like these, sure OF themselves quite indie
pendent because they have but small nre-
tense OF fashion to keep up and already
awakened by twenty years of radicaifsm
In the public schools. can make bicycle rid
ing. II they keep on pedaling. absolutely
respectable for their wives and daughters
When this is done the whole Partisan
world may fall in line upon the future OF
the daughter. Little by little the mischiey-
GUS influence of French mothers on their
girls may change for something more in
keeping with the spirit OF the times The
mothers OF the present day are OF the old
school-the old school, lacking fits religion
The daughters can scarcely be otherwise
than what they are. trained UP as they
have been Still, rumors of the Different
life Of English and American girls and even
German girls come to them, and they WON
der, with dertsion or regret, as may be IL
mothers could always guarantee their
daughters husbands before their youth had
the coping up which the French girl now
undergoes might seem less painful to a
foreigner. Such is VIGOROUSLY not the case
however. Young men in Paris grow more
and more fastidious to the dot and even
old men give themselves the airs of valu-
able parts when they have no fortune
worthy of a true temptation.
The bicycle is new. With IL, for once the
respectable world has been quick as the
great fashionables on the one hand and the
encroaching demi-monde upon the other
wheel. The hope for the respectable young
girl Is that in this case she is I'D to date
1t is admitted that a change OF some kind
should come somewh here, sometime Per-
haps the change will come with wheeling
STERLING HELLO.