The age-herald., 1897-09-14
BY MRS. GEORGE c. BALL.
-'.s

The women of Holland are making surprising progress in all matters which count towards real advanc =ment. An especial interest attaches to these stolid Dutch women. because of the present prominence given their young que=n, Wilhelmina, and also because of the ignorance of the world generally con corning them, and their ambitions. So little has previously besn knIown of them as a class, that they have been over looked in estimating the progress of wo- manhood in other portions of the world. Americans regard the Dutch as an apalhstic, stolid race, whereas the ad- yancement of the women of Holland is quite equal to that of the majority of women of other nations. Upon them has been conferred the unqualified right of suffrage. and they are eligible to nearly all municipal offices.
 They are advocates of organization and cooperation and have formed large number of philanthropic societies. Among these organizations are societies to aid laboring men to buy their own homes, a society to assist working-wo men to secure their own homes; a soci- ety for insuring workingwomen's lives; a sociefy for the assistance of sick work ingwomen, and a society to p1Iomote flower and vegetable culture among the poor. In 1898 Holland will have a worlds fair at the Hague, which will be devoted to women's interests and in- dustries Margherita Ailina Hamm, the celebrated journalist, who is always generously concerned about feminine activities, gives some instructive in- foI'mation about these progressive Dutch women, which is surprising to the aver age Amsrican.
 The flower fashion, or rather the fancy for floral decoration, reached an eXag- gerated but pretty point a few days ago, when two notable and prominent young Chicago people were welded. The marriage occurred at the country home of the brides parents in Wisconsin, and friends came from many parts of the northwest to witness the nuptials The distance from the brides home to the picturesque village church where the marriage occurred was not great, and the bridal party walked through the shady streets of the village, preceded by a little child in lovely pink toilette, who scattered rose petals along the pathway. The bride was carried to the church in a Sedan chair, borne by her two brothers, and the two closest friends of the groom. The chair was gorgeous in green satin, with ropes and garlands of sweet pea blossoms. The bridesmaids walked immediately behind the Sedan chair. At the church. gate the groom and his best man awaited the bride. The handsome home of the Pecks-the brides parents--was fragrant mass of sweet peas. Chicago society was entertained in the house and in the beautiful grounds surrounding the home One band of music was stationed on the broad verandah; another was hid away behind the rosebuds and hedges, and this unique, picturesque wedding was declared to be a bit of the eighteenth century, transplanted into this hurrying, scurryjng time of ours.
 
 The Hartford Times speaks its opin- ion about what it regards as fashions latest atrocity in women's clothes, the style of waist which requires to be hook ed in the most inaccessible places. "Ilast summer" it says, lat watering place, we saw husbandless women rushing around hotel corridors imploring the first one they saw to hook their gowns. Some times, when their husbands were away smoking, sailing, swimming or playing billiards, the wives, spinsters and stran- gers were drawn together by the bond Of common woe, and could be seen sitting on their trunks in the halls, wait ing forlornly to hook up each other One day we actually saw a chambermaid, a ccilorcd waiter, a washerwoman and an elevator boy. and somebody elses hus- band, all engaged in hooking women into their shoulder seams. Even the service of the hotel clerk had been called into reqnisition at times. Each woman who had to be alrosed was bitter in her de- aNlncfsfion Of the fashion. yet she did not possess the courage to defy it One woman sald she would like to swear. Another woman said savagely: I. will swear And she did. then and there. Still another exclaimed: Swear! My husband told me this morning when he was hooking my gown, that had the sweetest temper he ever saw until those cursed shoulder hooks came into fashion. The worst of it is it has made us both profane-11e, because he had ito do 50 much hooking. and because I have to be hooked so much.'"
 Mascagni, the composer of the exquls- ite opera "Cavalleria Rusticanas.'' att