The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-12-23
AIR BtILES o. DILIDOA
THE CREME DE LA CREME OF
THE CHILDREN'S
PETS
SMALL DOLLS ARE WINNERS
Elaborate Creations Do Not Retain
the Love of Little Mothers as
Long as the H0EaeIy
Little Ones.

This is a reassuring Christmas season
IN more ways than one The public has
money to burn and is burning it, but
one of the most satisfactory features of
the Christmas shopping is the number of
dolls that are being sold. The ravens
who have been croaking that the new
womanhood of the mothers is being Wis
tied upon the wee women, even in their
babyhood, are false prophets The little
girls are evidently the same old children,
with the mother instinct warm in their
hearts, and the cares of domesticity dear
to their souls. Not in a score of years,
say the toy shop proprietors, have so
many dolls been sold at the Christmas
season.
The fact may be partly accounted for
by the universal prosperity of the full
dinner pail epoch, but a better eXplaDa-
ton is found in the unusual Fascination
of this years doll world. 1t is literally
true that dolls were never before so at
tractive as they are now. For a great
many years there have been occasional
dolls of wonderful charms and accom-
plshments, dolls distinctiVely of the
Four Hundred and quite beyond the
reach Of ordinary children. These haugh-
tY Imogenes and We're de Neres are in
evidence nOw-more superior, more gor-
geouS, more costly than before; but the
transformation of the commonplace doll
is the seasons miracle. The little dolls
are such charmers that EN- the hard
ened spinster can't get by them without
buying some of them for small nieces
and friends, and a mother of wee maids
buys with both hands.
One may resist Bebe Juneau, who is
the latest Partisan Importation, and is as
large as a three-year-old child, who wears
silks and VelVetS and real lace and
furs, whose hats would do credit to
Vivot and whose hair is a model of the
coiffeur's art. OF course, if one wants
to pay from $50 to SIS for her one may,
but the chances are that her small owner
viii never be on intimate terms with her.
One can't spank a member of the haUte
noblesse Of France, and there's absolute
ly no satisfaction in having a doll that
can't be spanked Even the SIS and $15
waxen beauties of generous proportions
aren't the dolls a child can love, though
there's a distinction in owning ore Of
them that may please an up-to-date
child.
The small dolls are the we'll beloved Of
little mothers, and this year their name
is legion. One can buy them in any size
and of any material. One-inch bisque
dolls are jointed and finished with the
most careful attention to detail, so that
even the tiniest doll houses need not lack
inmates. In the three-inch dolls the
variety is practically endless. The small
faces are much more charming than the
staring waXen cOuntenances of the big
Partisan bellies. BisQue is the favorite
material for bisqUe dolls may be put
into a bathtub and scrubbed, and the
doh that can't take advantage of the
tiny, practicable bathtubs nowadays is
altogether out of the swim.
One may buy a whole Household OF
dolls, in any size from three to twelve
inches. In fact, they come in assorted
families, and all the buyer need do is to
establish social standard to which he
desires to live up. There is the head of
the family in a gray business suit, the
mother in sCmber black the young lady
daughter in gorgeous array, the college
boy in golf clothes, the school boy in a
sailor suit, the little girl in tapping hat
and picturesque cloak and the wee baby
in long clothes. To go with this COM
plete family of upper tendon is staff
of servants, cook, maid, butler, nurse,
coachman, footman. One has a choice
between a colOred cook, a French chef,
and a red-headed Irish Bridget in FAM
boyant paint. The maid is a miracle of
I-igness. The English butler is smugly
itrepEoa enable in his dress clothes The
nurse may be a colored nanny in BAN
Gamma turban, an AlsaCienne with f1ut-
tering ribbon streamers, a French nurse
in a white cap and apron, or the ordin-
airy New York intelligence office nurse of
no distinctive features. The coachman is
English in his gaiter buttons, the tiger
is a beautiful beast. Altogether, the
entire household tempts even the grown
up to play at doll life.
If tradespeople are wanted, there they
are. true to Hfe-butcher, baker, candle
stick maker and all the rest There are
soldiers and sailors, policemen and mes
senger boys, boys in Highland tartan,
and in FauntIeroy clothes, dolls of all
Ii 1,II-
position dolls. rag dolls, wax dolls. A
household of dolls, and a whole neighbor-
hood of dolls to go with it, may be
bought for a few dollars.
The men of the twelve-inch family are
the most convincing masculine bipeds
ever seen in dolldom. Up to this year the
masculine clement of doll families has
been distressing. stodgy, swollen-cheek-
ed, wonderfully and fearfully framed,
But now there are men of all classes.
from the butler up, who are fit for good
society. The man dolls of the season is
slim and wiry, though from much
golfing, and he wears comfortable check
ed business suits of approved cut Or
golf clothes, or yachting dannels, or
dress clothes, with jaunty ease. He has
sold SO well that toy dealers are lament
ing that they did not buy him in greater
quantities, and the chances are that men
will be as much in the minority in Toy
massachusetts,
mas is over.
Among the larger dolls that still sre
not ~too big to be cuddled by the tiniest
girls the baby dolls are best of all. The
makers have given them ver:table baby
faces, and they are fitted out with i
ordered for sure-enough baby, such tiny
baby layette as complete as any ever
knitted silk socks, such long clothes, hem
stitched and lace trimmed; such cloakS
and caps and embroidered fannels and
wells and carriage blankets and crib pill
lows, such baby baskets full of in
fnitesimai combs, brushes. powder puffS
sponges, etc. Surely one of these new
doll babies would be literal education
to the small mother.
Comparatively few dolls are made ir
this country, although the United States
are fast coming to the front in toy man
facture. 1t is said out Of $20,OO0,0e0 spent
annually upon toys in this country only
about one third goes to foreign markets
but it is in the manufacture Of iron anC
tin toys, furniture and mechanical toys
that America takes the lead. We are even
exporting wares OF that sort to Europe
but in the matter OF dolls we must give
way to France and Germany. There wa!
a time when almost all dolls of fire quail
ity were made in France but German
manufacturers. by studying French meth
DDS and fashions and improving upoG
them, have wrested the laurels from
France and produced better and cheaper
dolls than their French rivals.
NJ Chauvin, president of the toy de
partnent OF the Paris exposition, has haC
a large toy factory in the old Hotel d.
Berry in Paris. and there many of thu
most imposing French dolls are turns(
out, though, in France as in Germany
much of the work upon dolls is done
by workmen and workwomen in their
own homes.