The Topeka state journal., 1899-04-03
FACTS FOR WOMEN.

Word comes from New York that the
proposal of the New York Household
Economic association to start cooking
classes for men has met with great en-
thuSiaSm. Mothers approve of it for
their sons, wives for their husbands
maidens for their sweethearts, while the
men themselves are showing their ap-
probation by paying the fees. The first
class is to be limited to twelve. 1t is to
be a regular cooking class, and the
food prepared and cooked by men under
the instruction of a domestic science
teacher. The scheme may seem novel
at first but it also has it's serious and
practical side. Few people realize how
many men are compelled 20 rely upon
their own efforts in preparing their
meals, and perhaps fewer know how
pathetically helpless they are for lack
of any knowledge of the simplest prin-
cipleS of cooking. The class of men
usually students with limited incomes
men whose wives are ILL., and foreigners
unaccustomed to the culinary ways of
other countries than their own. The
first of these, the students, are in the
majority. Men are obliged to earn
living While taking a college course, and
are in great need of wholesome food.
They know nothing of marketing, and
seldom anything about preparing what
they buy. Undoubtedly such men will
advocate cooking classes. and the small
fees charged will be but a trifie as COM
pared with the wasteful experience of
working, so to speak, in the dark Many
art students do much of their own
cooking, and countless men prepare
their own breakfasts in their small bed
rooms. Sooner or later every man will
find that knowledge of cooking helps
him over a hard place at some time,
and cooking classes for men are GER
tainly a step in the right direction.
The various wedding customs of diff
ferent countries are most significant. A
Persian wedding, for example. includes
a torchlight procession of the bride
groom and his friends to the brides
home, where the groom and his COM
panions secure the bride and then
turn to the beating of drums. The Chi
nese have an elaborate wedding cere-
monial. 1t begins with presents and
the reports of astrologers. The parents
then correspond The girls father offers
his ugly and ill-faVOred child" for
such is Oriental etiquette. The father
of the boy, not to be outdone in polite
ness, describes his son as ''slothful, in
digent and weak in intellect" The
brides procession, for which even a
mandarin must make way, goes to the
bridegroom's house and is carried over
the threshold Japanese politeness is
like the Chinese; the subjection of wom
en- is the same, but the national good
humor makes it more tolera BILE. There
is a beautiful symbolism in the light
ing of the torches, when the brides
and bridegroom's lights are permitted
to mingle. An Arab wedding last seven
after the ceremony is over. 1t is then
proper for him to cry out in delight at
it's loveliness, and then, as in the Bible,
''the friend of the bridegroom, who
standeth and heareth him, rejoices
greatly because of the bridegroom's S
voice. and the people outside the tent
raise an answering cry A Moorish
wedding is also seven days affair. In
Turkey the bride stands behind a screen
during part of the ceremony, and is
first seen at it's conclusion. There is an
odd custom sometimes followed in Per-
sia A crowd of young men rush into
the feasting crowd, capture the guests
and shut them up in dark room. They
pay ransom to get out, and the money
is added to the brides doWry, native
way of enriching the young couples for
tune.
Mrs Archibald Little, an English
woman who lived in western China for
eleven years, says there is a growing
sentiment against the practice of Grip
ping the native Women'S feet w lille
she was there they held drawing room
meetings to discuss the subject, and
about 200 of the best families in Chung
king and 1500 families in the adjoining
district agreed to discourage the GUS
tom. Men are responsible for the prac-
tice for the first question they ask in
regard to a possible fiancee is about the
size of her feet. The engaged young
Chinaman when he is dining with his
friends, often proudly produces from the
recesses of his capacious sleeves a shoe
to prove the smallness of his future
wife's foot Women with these crippled
feet can walk and run, but, according
to Mrs. Little, 1T Is almost impossible
for them to stand still. When they try
it they hold on to whatever happens
to be nearest to them and sway back
ward and forward with rocking mo-
tiOn.
Providing marriage portions for young
girls is the object of a government fund