The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1902-05-22
FREEDOM OF FOREIGN WOMEN

= ANA1ASDVxA4 va = OX\ASA04y " VOkA1&V
Ladies' Of Europe Have Nothing Il Ike
~ Much Real Liberty A. II EN-
joyed by Americana.
Nowhere in the world do. women
claim and enjoy more real liberty
than here in America" said keen.
ly observant man, just home from
Paris; ''but there is freedom from
certain conventional restraints. in
dulged in by the fair foreigners that
our women have really not got the
courage to practice. This was i'm
pressed upon me by what saw this
spring on the Riviera, where all the
great ladies of Europe are just now
collecting.
Even to man the costumes seen
at Nice and Monaco are matters for
marvel and he can pick out the
American born from the foreign
women every time, at least I could
and did. The Americans wore rich
and lovely gowns, but it took the
Russian princesses to make our pref
ty women look like modest violets
beside their bold and original gor-
geousness.
Zone princess wore what the Ia
dies of my party explained was a
lowered muslin gown, trimmed with
sable tails, and though her head was
crowned with straw hat and flow
ers, her hands were thrust in huge
muff of the finest Russian fur. I
can only tell you that she looked a
perfect beauty, and to my eye won
derfully distinguished, but my COM
patriots shook their heads when
suggested their following the FASH
ion as set by the Russian lady.
Not for worlds they said; they had
been to see costumes made by the IA
nous Sara, and while her things were
marvels of artistic beauty, they were
never, so Sara confessed herself,
bought by Americans. Such wondrous
toilets as hers would make a woman SO
conspicuous at the Metropolitan opera
house, SO uncomfortably noticeable in
a New York restaurant and SO stared
at by Newport that in week her name
and picture would be in the paper.
"Sara dresses Austrian arch-
duchesses, French duchesses, English
comtesses and Russian princesses, but
the American womengo elsewhere, and
my feminine friends candidly admitted
that in matters of dress the foreign
woman enjoys far greater measure
of liberty, and, Furthermore, can wear
striking frock with an easy grace
and lack of Inconsistencies that our
country women have not yet at their
command.
''Then noticed other little liberties
French women especially take, that
with all their freedom our women
never dare assume. / can best illus
trate my point by telling you what I
saw in an exceedingly fashionable
Partisan restaurant. Not far from the
table at which my party dined sat
handsome Parisienne with erhusband
and son. She was in full evening toilet
Of no small degree of splendor and
there was no installing the fact that
she was grande dame, holding sue
cessfully to her youthful beauty.
"The dinner Of this group was chosen
with French taste, and I could hear
that they were going on to the opera.
After the liqueurs madame drew a
charming reticule before her, took
from it a tiny mirror and surveyed her
pretty face; extracting bit Of pow
der puff from her reticule she touched
her nose and chin daintily, and then
calmly lifting out a long, silky, brown
curl, she pinned it to her back hair, at
that point where its shining length
would fall gracefully over her base
white shoulder.
"When everything was to her salts
faction she rose, her husband put her
into a luxurious long coat and away
she went, leaving my party the only
astonished observers. No other man
and woman in the room seemed to
think her action in the least outre or
worthy even a thought; but, you see,
we were thinking all the while of the
sensation that simple and not only in
offensive but distinctly pretty little
side show would have created in one
Of our high-class restaurants.
"Why, the other diners would have
been paralyzed with amazement and
promptly set her down as mo lady, and
the next time she came to dine the
head waiter would have been careful to
discover that all the tables were en-
gagged. So, even in effete Paris, you
see" laughed the clever and observant
man, "there are some privileges en-
joyed that our code of liberty does not
allow"