The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-11-24
WOMAN'S
WORLD.


"Every young girl" said the man of
che world, fiicking the ashes from his
cigarette, and addressing, says Dorothy
My in the New Orleans Picayune, the
two little debutantes, EVERY girl de-
sires to shine in society and to be adj
mired by men. oh, don't trouble to
deny it. You are human, therefore
70 be praised; you are woman, there
fore to be pleased. Besides. 1t is the
career for which nature intended you
lust as much as it intended the rose
10 add to the beauty and fragrance
of the world. If you did not care for
the admiration of your fellow-creatures
YOU would not be very dear debu-
+ante. You would be a Frankenstein
that we should all flee from in hor-
ror
Now, just what it takes to make
a girl a bowling social success is one
of the Dundreary things that no fell
low has yet found out. 1 have seen
a girl to whom fate has dealt none
of the trump cards of wit, or beauty,
or wealth, yet who was besieged with
admirers on every hand. 1 have seen
another girl. with every trump in the
deck in her hands. who yet failed to
win out.
My own observation is that the
whole secret lies in the possession of
the right sort of mother One girl had
a mother who knew her business. The
other had a mother who was fatal
handicap, and if I were to try to give
a girl a recipe for popularity and So
cial success I should begin, like the
old-fashioned cookery books, with:
First, select your mother with great
care and if she did. there would be
no use for any further advice. The
mother would do the rest.
With the solitary exception of the
mother-in-law, no other individual has
come in for so much derision and
abuse as what is called the managing
mother She has been caricatured and
lampooned and slandered throughout
the length and breadth of the world,
but so far from being a figure of fun,
she is q heroine standing nobly at the
post of duty. Her daughter is her
own to protect, to manage for, to place
as advantageously as she can in life,
and she does right to watch like a
dragon over her. We should think bad
ly enough for a father who let his son
bankrupt himself by investing his all
in some wildcat speculation, while a
good investment stood waiting at his
elbow; but If a mother tries to keep
her daughter from wrecking her life
by marrying some no-account fellow
with whom the girl imagines herself
in love, we hold her up in scorn as
managing mamma
Every one who knows the world,
knows that there are hordes of men
who are the butterflies of society, and
who have no inclination whatever of
affecting themselves with a wife and
turning into a family grub. They fit
from flower to flower in the ballroom,
monopolizing the prettiest, the most at
tractive of each seasons debutantes,
and driving eligible men away. The
young girl is naturally fiattered at
having won the admiration of one so
worldly wise and such a connoisseur of
beauty, and she allows the man to fill
up her dance. card, and camp on her
parlor chairs, and to take possession of
her in a way that is none the less real
because it is intangible. People begin
to speculate about the engagement, but
there are never any announcement
cards The man has merely been ANUS
ing himself, and in a season Or two he
will drop her, as he has dropped 9TH
ers, for some newer and freSher face,
absolutely and cold loodedly indiffer-
ent to the fact that he has stood in the
way of the girl making a good match
and settling herself for life.
Every now and then you hear some
one wondering why such and such a
handsome and attractive girl has never
married. Nine times out of ten the an
swer is right here-that she had a
mother who was such an idiot she
didn't know how to protect her daugh-
ter against the social deadbeats of So
ciety.
Another thing that foxy mamma
If you have picked her out with the
proper care--will see to it that you are
prepared for the part you are to play.
She will recognize the fact that while
life is hard tack, 1t is also omelette
soufie, and that a girls education
should consist of frivols as well as sub
stantials. If a girl can't learn but one
thing, it is more important to. know
how to comb her hair pompadour than
it is to know the multiplication table
and it will carry her farther in the
world; but, thank heaven, there is no
reason why she shouldn't adorn the in
side of her head as well as the outside.
But mothers need to get up-to-date
In their training. This is an age of
vaudeville, when we want to be
amused, and not instructed. Nobody
will listen while Miss Minerva Byrn
Nav Vassar discources on protoplasms,
vi hSpdSld TducIGWShl w dB-
ner opus, but we are all daft about lit
tie Kitty Jones, who can play the ban
10, or sing rag time, or do any other
kind of clever stunt. 1 didn't make the
world, my children. I am merely Civ
ing you a few tips on it, and I trust
hint to the wise is sufficient.
Great also will be the reward of
the mother who has sense enough to
run up the mo gift sign on her banner,
and determination enough to live up 10
1t. Girls don't know it, but they cut
themselves out of half of the pleasures
they might have by making the price
of their society so expensive it is pro-
hlbitory. We go on the silly theory
that we all know is false, that every
body who goes out in society is a mill
honaire, to whom the price of Ameri-
can Beauty roses, and chocolate
creams, and a supper after the play, is
mere bagatelle not worth consider
ing. The truth of the matter is that
While young man could often afford
the theater tickets, he can't scare up
enough for the feed after the play, or
the flowers to precede it, and so the
girl stays at home.
Worst still, the girls cut themselves
out Of good husbands, for the men who
are worth marrying, the industrious,
Woodworking fellows who are saving up
little to go In business for themselves,
and who are going to be the merchant
prince of tomorrow, are kept out OF
society by its extravagant demands.
once knew woman who, not even az