Omaha daily bee., 1897-02-28
SOCIETY ON TIE EVE OF LENT
It's Flame Burns with Added Brightness
Just Before Its Temporary Extinction.
COLONIAL BALL or MONDAY NIGHT CLUB
Many Have Left Town to Participate
in Festivities Elsewhere, and 9th
crs Have Come I'm TO Take Part
I'm social Events at Home.

That society should experience a kind Of
spasmodic activity in the week Immediately
preceding Lent was to have been expected,
but a careful and, 1t is presumed, prayerful
Sunday morning perusal of the columns
which follow, will show that the revival
although temporary and possibly Fictitious
in Its character, was undoubtedly brisk
while 1t lasted. Besides the much antici-
pated Colonial ball of the Monday Night
club, the large kensingtons OF Mrs. Clanln
and Miss Himebaugh, the big dancing party
of the Montezumas, and the reception given
by Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Cullingham. there
were plenty of other entertainments Of vary
ing size but Of invariable success. given In
many cases by modest people who shrink
from the publicity which they imagine to
attach to the exploiting of the names of
their guests In the newspapers. These
numerous functions, together with the pres
ence In town of several popular young
women, for whom a round of luncheons,
dinners and tess have helped to make life
worth living, and the departure of many
prominent people for the opera in Chicago,
the inauguration ceremonies in Washington,
and the pageantry and frivolity of Shrove
Tuesday In New orleans. have combined to
mako a busy week, the salient features of
which are faithfully set forth hereinafter.
The reluctance, among the male partici-
pants In the Colonial ball, to don completely
the picturesque garb of a century ago. was
by no means confined to those who have no
ancestors to boast of. but was also noticed
In men whose revolutionary sires would have
scorned to go about with wide trousers
Mapping about their well turned calves. 1t
is not easy to account satisfactorily for this
disinclination to appear In a dress admirably
calculated no set off the tct,pcrh natural I'D
vantages which most young men nowadays
are known to possess, but which are in a
measure concealed by the golf stockings
largely affected at present. Powdered hair
alone does not make a colonial gentleman
OF one, any more than stone walls a prison
make or iron bars q cage; and even IL one
goes tho length of putting a scrap of black
court-plaster on a portion of ones face
which does not require its healing influence,
the ensemble still suggests only remotely
ones colonial forbears. Possibly If an
eighteenth century ball is undertaken again
in Omaha, the men will be persuaded to
overcome their modesty and natural timidity,
and immense themselves from head to heel
In the spirit of the time which Is sought
to be represented.
The reference to trousers recalls the case
OF a pair of these necessary, but unmention-
able garments, which were irretrievably
ruined the other day in the performance of
an act of herolsm for which the doer of it
claimed no credit in view of the undoubted
fact that others who passed by on the other
side OF the street might have done what he
did and so saved him a tailor's bill. The
manner of the event was this:
On one of the main thoroughfares of
Omaha a brick store building stands next
to a vacant lot, the original lowness CT
which has been accumulated by the erection
OF the store and the filling in Of the street
and adjacent lots. These Improvements have
made of this lot a kind of funnel-like pit,
three sides of which in stormy seasons are
as difficult to scale as the fourth, which is
formed by the brick wall. The affection
ately clinging mud which moisture makes of
Nebraska soil lies thick and slab e, erywhere
about.
Everybody was going home to dinner and
the sun was dropping low in the west. A
little girl of perhaps 8 years, meanly clad
and carrying a heavy basket, had started
from the rear to cross this treacherous de-
preston toward the sidewalk, having doubt
less been hidden by her mother to make
haste with the supplies for the evening meal.
She had come to the bottom without serious
mlshap. and was struggling painfully to tug
her heavy burden up the dangerous decliv-
iy that led to safety. Her face was pitt
full to see in its growing despair, as man
after man went by without needing the mute
appeal of her eyes. At last her little
strength gave out, and with a choking sob
she set her basket down and waited for the
final catastrophe.
Just then a young man, who is well known
and much admired in the upper circles OF
society, came up, saw the woeful little fig
ure, grasped the situation with his usual
celebrity and acted with his customary
promptness. He completely spoiled a good
share of what he had on, but he rescued the
child and her basket and sent her on her
way rejoicing, but too much shaken by the
event to thank her preserver. AS for him,
he ate his dinner with a better appetite than
usual. The clothes did not trouble him at
all. He has money to buy more.
In answer to a typewriter inquiry, signed
"a Reader of The Daily Bee," as to
whether 1t is still the fad for ladies to
wear flowers at a select dancing party the
society editor desires to express a strong
unwilllngness to be made arbiter of any con !!
troversy which by his decision may result
in the Sinking of the reasonable obligations
OF any Darby to his Joan. 1t is his humble
but firmly established opinion, however. that
flowers are never more beautiful than when
they adorn a beautiful woman and, fur
thermore, that women, beautiful or not,
take on an added charm from such decOra-
tion. AS to the usage which obtains at Sc
lect dancing parties, II may be that women
are at present more inclined to carry flowers |