The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-30

would be ungenerous, since always win.
But If the Shamrock had beaten think how
the tight little island would positively tear
itself loose. What blaze of triumph
would flame from Lands End TO John
O'Groat's, The Queens jubilee or the cele-
hration Of the relief of Ladysmith wouldn't
be worthy to mention beside it. The fact
that with unlimited money and utmost skill
and care the sometime mistress of the
seas cannot quite win back that cup shows
once more the value of the personal equa-
ton. 1t is just that American inventive
ness, power to overcome difficulties, alert
ness. mental and physical. ability swiftly
to seize opportunity, are superior to British
Perhaps when England passed the naviga-
ton act and compelled our shipbuiders and
sailors to outsail and outwit the British
navy. as condition of earning their liv-
ing, she made ii forever impossible TO win
back the Americas cup.
Some good people make il a matter of
reproach to the churches that they are to
so great an extent social clubs, seeming
to think that they should confine them
selves strictly to religious and charitable
functions But is 1t not true that what
ever they accomplish in the line of making
people know each other is most worthy
and commendable and that the only re-
proach should be that they fail to do it
more cordially and thoroughly?
Companionship is a fundamental need OF
humanity. Friendly neighbors. cordial
greetings. comrades, conversation, these
are among the great necessities of the
spirit, and If the churches fail to find out
the stranger within the gates, and offer
them to him. the saloon is always ready.
My own conscience is haunted by the men,
DRY of the nice boy all alone at one of the
parks one evening. trying to enjoy himself
after his days work, and looking wistfully
at the merry bands of young people, from
whom he was separated by the impossible
barrier of ''unintroduced." Some ma
chinery for making human beings known
to each other is urgently needed and there
can be little doubt that the churches are
the best have for the purpose. Where
they fail, ii is not from lack of good will,
so much from ignorance and from en-
barrassment to how to proceed. l have
been told that the social amenities of one
church in the city have earned for it the
title of 1.-THE Holy Refrigerator" but / can
Is an unfounded libel.
1t is always difflult for the majority of
mankind to realize that the present fash
ion fad is not the sum of all perfection,
the last word of good taste, and a thing
to make look askance, with a slow
derisive smile, at what the time Just pre-
ceding considered good taste. sometimes
suspect that the standard of taste is alta
vistic. The parent, that is, the immediate
predecessor, of the present style is always
painfully out thing one cannot look
buck upon without shudder; while its
grandparent is all that is lovely Twenty
years ago ii was the fashion to say that the
late Georgian and early Victorian time was
the most utterly tasteless era in styles of
clothing and house decoration and furnish
ing that the world had ever known In one
of Mrs. ELEPHANTS stories one of the char
acters remarks in respect to the shabby old
drawing rooms of the duke of something,
Their graces rooms were furnished be-
fore taste was invented" Yet for the last
few years we have been living over that
tasteless era. decade at time First the
styles of 1880 were rampant, then those of
1910 and now we are living in the fifties,
and the civilized world is holding its breath
in the dread apprehension that crinoline
may be coming next. Now it is my private
opinion that those styles were ugly, that
the general broadened-out down-droopine.
much be-founced style of woman's dress is
dowdy and ungraceful; that wallpaper con-
sisting of plain color decorated with great
gilded platters or lozenges, or else with
enormous punches of roses like cabbaees
is not beautiful and that striped paper is
not a delight TO the eye which Laws me
open to the accusation of having no artistic
instincts whatever.
Also, they tell us that high heels and
dropping shoulders are to be the death of
the athletic girl. and that interesting deli
cacy and pallor are to be again i'm vogue
Now doubt not that the athletic girl like
her predecessor the bicycle girl, has led far
too strenuous life. and that her violent
exertions have been even more injurious to
health than deficiency of exercise would
be. She needs year or two of rest as
well much patching up: but il does
seem as if she might have rested without
inflicting on herself the torture of two-inch
heels and sleeves that bind down the upper
arm. These vagaries and extremes of
fashion seem inexpicable to the moderate
souls that do not pretend to keep up with
them, but doubtless to be in the lead of
fashion, TO float on the topmost wave of
the latest fad, is an ideal, an ambition an
aspiration, something to live for. and breeds
in the hearts of its successful votaries a
lofty scorn of the dull souls that prefer
comfort to such ideals, and health to high
heels and tight corsets.
There is one change, however, that the
house-building fashions of the last twenty