Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-03-25
OUR SOCIAL WORLD

tAll items of social interest will be gladly
noted in these columns If sent to Mrs.
George c. Ball. Nineteenth street, between
Tenth and Eleventh avenues. South High
lands. Telephone $685.
Monday and Tuesday were opening
days with many of our largest dry goods
and millinery establishments, and in con-
sequence the streets were alive with Bir-
mingham women yesterday and the day
before, and steady streams of them went
in and out of the handsome stores. And
no wonder for no matter how the finan-
cial question disturbs the public mind,
no matter whether the Cubans are bellig-
erents or insurrectionsts, or whether the
republican presidential nomination viii
go to Mckinley, Morton, Quay, Reed or
the bridegroom to-be, Mr.. Harrison, wo-
men will love pretty clothes and will buy
them, provided they have the necessary
money, without much regard to the pur
chasing power of gold, silver or even
fiat" money. So into the stores they
crowded, and, next to an afternoon tea,
there is no other function which
draws together more charming women
than an opening" every one intent
upon inspecting the new fashions and
fabrics What bewildering array of
beautiful things there wasl Yards of
silks as lustrous and dazzling as if spun
for Sheba's garments, and as soft and
lovely in subdued eolorlng as If woven in
an oriental loom. There were chic WOOL
ems for the smart spring gowns and sat
ms and brocades that left little for fem
mime taste to imagine. Laces, hlrny as
spiders web, or creamy and corded, hung
In festoons and garlands. Beads that
would set an Indian wild with delight
and would have made him pawn all his
broad acres to possess were scattered in
endlesse variety about the counters.
Cool, crisp linens, with exquisite en-
brioderies to match, and organizes as
dainty as water color picture We'd with
piques and duckings Oh, it was enough
to confuse the best balanced woman in
the city, And if, by any good fortune,
you kept your head and anything>in your
purse after a thorough inspection OF the
dry goods you are worthy to be canon
lied if you knew the way home after the
bewildering beauty of the millinery.
Flowers to the right of you, flowers to
the left of you. all so natural that you
imagined the perfume and fruits that
made one wonder If the seasons were not
out of joint and declare that 1t must be
August instead of March. There were
hats that fit and hats that did not; hats
that were large and hats that were
small; white hats, green hats, black hats,
brown, lilac, blue and yellow hats! And
nearly all of them we'll shaped.
If there is one cause for congratula-
ton among women it is the gradual dis
appearance of the frightful headgear OF
the past year. Hats and bonnets at the
openings had faint suggestions OF their
use and no longer resemble ambitious
flying machines and Napoleonic cha
peaux Those exhibited Monday and
Tuesday are sensible affairs, and the
women who purchase them can wear
them without suffering untold and UNI
tellable agonies of mind and body. To
many of us the living through the period
of Dutch bonnets and French chapeaux
oflast summer and winter is one of the un-
explainable things of life, one OF those
things which would have been considered
impossible had it not come upon us by
gradual and almost imperceptible
changes. With some of us there will al
ways linger memories that no future
hat, no matter how lovely, can ever OBJ
ltreate. Scared into some of our minds
are pictures of Dutch bonnets, which
would not remain in the right position
on any kind of head, even with the
use of dozens of hat pins; of Napoleonic
chapeaux, which evinced an unconquera-
BILE desire to retreat from public view
and find their way back to st. Helena.
The birds have evidently not contribut-
ed many wings to the present pretty
spring fashions, and the eagles and con-
doris have not been moleSted. This Is
gratifying, for 1t seems an awful pity
to sacrifice these latter birds to appeaSe
the demands of a passing whim, and yet
we all know there is not feathered
creature which could furnish some of
the wings worn during the past winter,
unless found among the Rocky noun
magnitude than an eagle could have
grown some of the wings that cruel
fashion forced on the hats of some of its
devotees. But that is past and gone,
with the Dutch bonnet and all such para
phefnalia and in their stead are pictur-
ocr h6rnpniup and artistic hon.
nets.
All the stores evinced the most COM
mendable enterprise, and several of them
were decorated with handsome palms
and other pot plants. The windows were
marvelously pretty, with their drapery
of springIike fabrics and wreaths and
clusters of flowers which We'd with bios
SONS of tropical regions The merchants
did themselves proud and Birmingham
women gave every evidence of their APP
probation and approval.
In Sundays column / gave some ac-
count of Hon. William Mckinley and his
family So it seems proper that we
should know something of the inner life
the home circle--of his political rival,
Hon. Mr.. Reed Of Maine. Washington
special to the Chicago Record says:
Though no man is more in the public
rye than Speaker Reed, his family have
1Ru1eQ out Little III SOCltty at Tic Capital
Ind little has been said about them in
he newspa pers-a thing very much to
Mrs. Reeds taste.
Mrs. Reed was Miss Susan Merrill of
Portland. Me-, where her father was the
minister of the Congregational church.
She was educated at the schools in her
native place and from early childhood
knew Tom as a merry, fat playmate. 1t
is now twenty-five years since they were
married and the ceremony took place in
the pretty parlor of ethe clergyman
quiet home. Reed was then member
of the Legislature of Maine. and the young
couple went to the capital Immediately
after the wedding. At present the Reeds
have two homes one modest house in
Portland and the other a summer cot
tage or TIC geacoa5t, where they ca I,
pass the hot months in comfort. But
during the session of congress they spend
their time at the Shoreham hotel in
washington, where they have lived ever
<.ipca n was built bv Governor Morton of