The San Francisco call., 1896-07-19
Straw Hats
Are Worn in
London JoWn

Soft fronted shirts are enjoying great
popularity and are to be had in all colors.
The white are being worn almost exclu-
sively for golf and they are certainly the
most fashionable.
Him" is still in England, so his bits of
information are, as usual, valuab BILE. In
his last epistle we are informed that straw
hats are coming In in England, and they
are very high of crown and narrow of
brlm; that shirts and ties are subdued in
color, and the inevitable pinks and blues;
the shirts striped, and the ties of cotton or
linen are seen on all sides; that also the
era OF the golf colored stock is at an end,
and that one does not see it in England
nor in Ireland; that blue cheviots and
serges, that grays with green's, that browns
with green's, as / have already remarked,
are the rage, and that we are approaching
rapidly conservative state of dress when
bright and glaring hues will be no more,
and men will not resemble itinerant harle-
quins or walking parterres of bright-hued
blossoms"
The smartest gloves this summer are
unquestionabIy gray suede or undressed
kid.
When riding in the park in New YORK
and at Newport In ths afternoon men wear
ordinary trousers, strapped under the or
binary walking-boot, black cutaway coat
of vicuna, gloves and Uop hat. In the
morning may be donned the regulation
whipcord and corduroy riding rig.
When driving hand a gray driv-
ing coat with large buttons and a top hat
may be worn, but the afternoon dress is
ne tiofl . 80 i,rl
black frock coat and top hat.
Concerning their clothes the best-dressed
men of to-day are exceedingly conserva-
tive.
As our last yachting season was nearing
its close the "half-rater'' (writes an East
arn authority, had found its way into the
affections OF all yachtsmen, who construe
yachting to mean handling your own boat
and testing your own nerve and seaman
ship against that of the other fellow. This
year the half-rater is to the yachtsman
what the bicycle is to the ordinary citizen.
From seaside, riverside and lakeside come
one OF these cries: 1--WE are going TO
build ''We are building" or "We have
built" Almost every day new rater
Is launched on the waters of Long Island
Sound, now regular feet is bobbing and
nodding up and down. The half-rater, be
1t understood, is built only for racing and
the training and turning out OF racing
shippers.
The most expensive half-rater costs no
more, including everything, than double
the price of a first-class bicycle. Again /
quote: at represents class of cheap little
boats, something that two lads or a couple
OF bank clerks, by clubbing their savings
| together, can buy and, as the craft is not
big enough to carry professional hand,
can race all summer and extract for
them many hundred dollars worth of fun
at very few dollars actual expense. 1t is
IN this democratic cheapness that the con-
tlnuance and we'll being of the half-rater
class lies. A half-rater should be like the
evening dress, which puts the millionaire
banker and his clerk on equal footing for
the time being. Thomas Fleming Day,
the Yachting expert, puts the matter well
when he says:
Ii we sanction or allow the going to
extremes IN construction so as to run the
expense up into the beyond $500 it will
Kill the half.rater in two seasons. There
Is but one way to prevent this and that is
10 sit down on lead-limit the amount of
weight that can be slung beneath the keel.
Unless this is done the costly fin machine
VIII make its appearance and the half
rater class will go the way of all classes !"
1t is safe to predict that ere long numer-
GUS half-raters will be scudding across our
bay; but there is no need TO expatiate, for
every lover OF the water, every true yachts
man, viii be impatient to invest in one of
these little 5000 craft.
When Mr.. Stephens designed the dainty
halt-rater Ethelwynn, he was acknowl-
edged to have beaten the British at their