St. Paul daily globe., 1895-03-17
FAIR POKER FIENDS.
1t Is Now the Craze in New
York to Give Poker
Matinees.
PLAY ON SUNDAY NIGHTS.
One Enthusiast Proposes to
Start q Woman'S Poker
Club.
GOOD MANY WANT TO JOIN 1T
What the Husbands Say
How Woman Plays the
Old Game.


schemes for Lenten discipline or not
is not stated, but the truth remains
that poker is rampant in society,
and that the garrish light of day
that lends vicious aspect to spades
and clubs is shut out of the drawing
room before o'clock in the after
noon, and that the fair ones settle
down to business with the earnest
ness of the sporting fraternity. The
crimson lamp shades and those of
daffodil yellow throw a soft light
on the scene of feminine beauty.
and the latter increases becomingly
as the eXhilaration of the great game
or the naughty little game pro-
crosses, says the New York Re-
corder.
Boston inaugurated matinee poker.
Not Boston with the eyeglasses;
erudite Boston, with it's mouth
pursed with virtue and lines of NOR
ality diverging from a given cor
ner downward, but hippant, drive
dull-care-away Boston. This was
two years ago, and New York has
been just two years setting the seal
of approval upon the fashion. It's
WickedneSS recommended it; but
New York likes to inaugurate it's
own wickedness, hence the delay in
accepting and establishing after
noon poker
This innovation of depravity, mask
ing under the title of social enter
tainment of matinee parties, is pre-
ceded by a luncheon of an informal
nature. Everything has to be on
time at an afternoon poker party,
because time is essential to the game
and the afternoon is not as elastic
as the night; it's boundaries are more
circumscribed, and the hour hand
prances madly around toward the
dinner hour. So luncheon must only
consume one hour, and must there
fore be of a simple nature. DeviIed
lobster and salad and bread and an
ice with coffee is the character of
the luncheon. Cocktails and Sau-
terne supply the eXhilaration, and
at o'clock sharp the game opens.
women at poker is an interesting
study. She likes the chance of the
game; She loves to make the money.
with the man the game is div arsi on:
win her 1t is business; her ex-
hllaration is great with the winning:
her depression is correspondingIv
great with the losing; she cannot
mask her emotions as a man can
ana there comes a glad light in her
eye, and then, ever and anon If
fades away, and you know luck is
against her; she takes greater
chances than man on what she
assumes to be hand that cannot
pe pea aten, and she is too honest
ana too earnest to risk a bluff
through the breakwater of cau
or showdown. She is a bad 1oser
always, but the flush of triumnb is
d slght worth all your strong phil
osophy, the kind that carries con-
ISOLATION in it's train.
HoWs your wife?"
II was just the courteous inouirv ono
man makes of another, and the rarIy
fits well here: iepiS
unusually well, thank Won she
made $ll5 at poker last night So shes
IN high feather. She lost $95 the week
before, and the result was a LITTLE do
pressing to the family"
Ihats the way it goes. Old Atlas
hlmself never felt his burden beavie,.
than does your lady poker PLAYER wbe,,
her losses are heavy; but thew are fo,.-
Sotten when once she wins Forga+
Iulness of suffering is a distinctiveIy
Feminine trait. Watch her when 49,
Jackpot is hers and she gathers in tba
spolls; one rounded arm encircles +ba
booty, and, with a curve that is com
prehens1ve, she sweeps it all into ber
lap-Jlngle they go, and then the smile
Oh triumph; who may forget it.
~ thorough canvass of the situation
reveals the fact that men do NOT on
tlrely approve of women pIaying nolxar
even when they are themselves in the
game, and also that they regard tbis
recent innovation of women nIaving
with women in an afternoon at howe
as a culpable condition of social affairs
and one worthy of their deepest con.
demnation. AS long as she is content
to bring him an evenings diversion
limiting her knowledge of values and
confeSSlng to vague uncertainty as
to whether she better put up the third
time when she has two pairs in her
hand, forgetting to ante and USUALLY
talking of irrelevant matters, he is not
apprehensive about her; but when the
Ialr player manifests an absorbing in
terest in 1t and learns values. and
Keeps her mind on the game and gains
control of her emotions so that she
can conceal rapture with the mask of
Indifference, then it is time for action.
Women have never been noted for
skill at games. At whist they are a
trial; they never know what is trumps.
nor what has been played; the woman
chess player is a great exception: she
tolerateS backgammon and cribbage.
ana courts her best man over the
board. She plays solitaire and tells her
own fortune with cards, and never is
she more distinctively, more delicious
ly feminine. She rises to the level of
casino, and Is a more or less Indifferent
hand at euchre. Poker has come in
on the wave of feminine independence
and manhood mania that is at present
sweeping over the country. The woman
of culture in the cultivation of the
lesser vices-the cambria tea vices, that
men are much a matter of comparison
presents an interesting study in hu-
man nature; in this particular she is a
mere travesty upon her male partner
Her taste for cigarettes and cocktails
is growing sign of the times. 1t be-
longs with the new school of feminine
motive, the motto or which is 'sWhat
man dare, 1 dare"
In the house of a reputable couple in
Harlem, not far from the One hundred
and thirty-ffth street station. men and
women play poker every Sunday night.
and they play to win. One little
woman who has good luck always.
even without trotting around the table
between deals, or challenging soma
man to change places with her for
luck, announced last Sunday night that
she should soon open a club room, for
she believed there was money in it.