The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-05-29

New York, May 21.-One must be ruff
fed or counted out of fashion, and then
one might as well be out of the world.
Skirts are ruffled up to an 1S-inch waist;
sometimes up to a 4S-inch one, and then
the effect is that Of a pillow with a
string tied around it. But the woman
who has not sufficient number of ducats
to have ruffed skirt turns
up her piquant little nose,
declares that ruffied skirts are
common and ruffes her sash. This
can be done more cheaply, but it is equal
~ effective. For a long time sashes were
in disrepute. They were given over, as
it We're, to babes and Stockings, but Just
now the trimmed sash, with its innocent
looking little belt hugging the place that
YOU would like to put your arm around,
is 1.-THE thing" Lots of pretty belong
ings are ''the thing" with the tiny little
article slurred over. but when it comes
to emphasizing the aforesaid article
then, If you are feminine, you have it or
from a social standpoint You die.
Years ago, when you and | were inno-
cent little tots and knew nothing of the
troubles of this world, we wriggled and
twisted while our fond mothers tied us
up as far as our healthy big waists per-
mitted in broad blue sashes with two
loops and two ends Such a sash is not
recognized nowadays.
The fashionable SASH when it is not
ruffied and everybody knows what a
ruffled sash is, has its end trimmed
with fringe or lace, and its bow must be
made (being feminine, you know there
is a difference between made bow and
n tied bow after one Of four fashions.
The first is a gauze ribbon, with a stiff,
double Topped bow and a knotted silk
fringe at each end. The second is love
~ brocade ribbon, with two loops backed
by short forked ends with a strass buc<lel
in the center and long ends that arel
forked and tipped with pearl fringe. The
third one has two loops up and twol
loops down and knot across the mid
die, with fanciful fringe having a head
ing as its finish. The other one received
in polite society has a rosette sucn as
Your mother used to make. with sloping
ends finished with a heavy knotted silk
fringe. Those sashes are the kind that
the Astors and Vanderbilts, who are not
affected by the rise and fall of coffee,
wear, and they are shown by a French
dressmaker who is small and saucy, Who'll
can make wonderfully chic frock and
can charge, o, We gods and little fishes!
/ cannot understand why, since we are
fighting the Spanish. or Mt least playing
with them and giving them a little taste
of what our new navy can do, that
Scotch plaids should be in fashion, and
yet-and yet the gentleman who rides
that ungraceful machine known as the
bike" whose legs lack curve. but are
strong in muscle, wear hose Of the plaid
of some special clan to which he has
no personal right, while the delivery wag-
ons of a we'll known shop are glorious
in the plaid Of another clan because the
second member of the firm happens TO,
bear the name. that belongs to the oh,
what do the Scotch call the head of al
clan? Is it duke or laird or master or
what?
/ never think of the Scotch without re-
membering that rather unpleasant story
of the time when all Scotland was attack
ed with the hives and great dukes, hay-
ing put many posts to uphold the iron
fence around his private grounds, usedI
to hear the ordinary folks saying, God !
bless the Duke of Argyll" as they rubbed
their much troubled backs against these
granite posts. There is something attrac-
tive about the Scotch but / must say
/ do not approve Of plaid stockings, and
/ must add that cannot imagine any
woman who has sense of the beautiful
incasing what the rigidly proper call her
Flower limbs in them. Nothing SUITS q
woman in the stocking line SO well rs
those of black silk, for they succeed IN
bringing out every curve and making
the ankle and foot smaller and the iil-