The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-23
YOUNG GIRLS SPOILED
DICTATES OF FASHION ARE VERY
RIGIDLY ENFORCED
Children Are Children No Longer
Among the WeII-to-do, but Children
of the Poor Are Still ChiIdren-Girls
at Matinees Without chaPerons.

Many young men of the present day
fear to marry because of the great
luxury in which most of the girls live
at home and which it would be hard
for many of them to give up. This is
one cause for the decrease in the num-
Der of marriages which we hear of once
in a while, and which gives food for
thought to psychologists and sociolo-
gists.
Girls in these days usually begin
where their mothers left off, instead of
doing as their mothers used to do,
work with a man and save with him
and build up home for their old age.
We do these things better now, in the
minds of the modern girl; but the wise
old philosophers shake their heads and
predict the fall of the republic because
of the luxury of the times. They say
we are in training for another Rome.
The preparations being made this
autumn for the girls who are going
away to school bear out what has been
said about luxury. A bride could not
have a more elegant trouSseau than
several of these school girls, notably
those who are going to expensive and
fashionable institutions in the East.
Their underwear is elaborate, their
gowns are made at the best modistes
and there is much rivalry about who
shall have the best, etc, all of which
is absurd and reprehenSible.
One is tempted to ask what will be
left for these girls when they really do
come out? The father of five girls was
grooming in spirit the other day be-
cause of this very thing; indeed, ones
heart quite goes out to him when one
knows what it means to dress one
woman And then five! No wonder
he groaned. But the laws of the Medes
and Persians were simple affairs COM
pared to the laws of fashion which
reign among the very young girls of
this city, or any city What one girl
has, all the others must have; and if
the one girl happens to be the daughter
of a millionaire it does not make any
difference somehow the others must
have as much, if it is a possible thing.
All this leads to heart burningS and
jealousies which are very real when
girl is fourteen or fifteen. And the
mothers seem powerlesse to change
matters; where a girl does not dress
and do as she pleases, she is regarded
as queer" by the others.
And when it comes to beauX and fads
of all kinds, the twelve year-old girl of
today is just as much in it as her sister
of eighteen. In other days a girl of
twelve played with dolls; now she
scorns them and talks about the boy
who lives in the next block. The fast
ness of the age even evinces itself
that the real children of today are
found among the very poor. If you do
not believe this, take a Sunday school
class at a fashionable church, and then
a class in the week day at some indus
trial school, and draw your own con-
clusions.
Just the mere matter of dolls tells
the story. A girl of twelve took her
dolls with her to White Bear year
ago, but the other children laughed at
her so that she put them out of sight
and played with them on the sly. In
this matter we would do well to copy
the English, who keep their girls in the
nursery until they grow up, and when
they come out everything is new and
fresh to them. If you do not believe
these things, go to a matinee some day
and see the girls of fourteen and six
teen who come without chaperons, go
out between the acts, and are as I'M
abashed as the actors themselves. The
astonishing thing is that they go to all
kinds of plays, good or bad, and talk
most learnedly about the good points
of actors and actresses. Verify the
world do novel