The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-02-11

Fads, fancies and fashions seem to
go in invisible waves across the coun-
try, over seas and mountains, like the
wireless telegraph. In regard to slang
this has often been remarked upon.
Just how a slang expression originates,
or just where, is rarely known, but one
thing is certain, that if it is heard one
day in New York, in a week it is being
used in San Francisco and all over the
intervening country. Just so in fash
ions. How a woman knows that bow
in the back of her neck is stylish when
no one ever told her so and she never
read it in any paper, is one of those
mysteries which it is impossible to
solve. And yet these things happen
every day. Women seem to have sort
of sixth sense which tells them what is
stylish even before the fashion books
announce it. But it is not only dress
which is governed by fashions; there
are fads in other things, and the origin
of so much in this way is mysterious
that one is inclined to believe there is
a great deal going on in a subconscious
world that We know little of as yet.
Even in crimes there are fashions;
for instance, there seems to be at the
present time a positive fad for bigamy
The papers are full of stories Of mas
culine and feminine bigamists, and the
large majority of these strange per-
sons with prediction for matrf-
mOny seem to live, or to have lived, in
Minneapolis. Besides typhoid fever,
which is said to be almost epidemic in
our sister city, bigamy runs a close sec
Ond.
Now, without any intention of throw
ing bouquets at the Flour City we will
admit that it is unlike our friends up
the river to commit anything so STUPID
as blgamy. For surely of all the anna
flourish sure-to- be- found-out sort of
crimes, bigamy should take the prize.
Ii must be such a nervous, depressing
sort of business. One would imagine
that bigamists would die Of nervous
prostratiOn before they could be con-
WINGED. The worry of trying to present
the two or several wives, the outlay of
money required to keep them all going,
must be very hard on a man. Bigamists
are their own worst enemies. In view
OF the TACT that SO many men complain
or the extravaganza of one wife, and
the impOssibility of keeping up a
household in a suitable way, it is little
snort OF remarkable that a man will,
with his eyes open, commit bigamy.
Blgamists should have their SANITY
inquired into. They are not right. But
blgamy is the fashion just now and a
crime wave of that description seems
TO be sweeping the country When the
Woman's department finds time she is
going to interview the chief of police
and ask him if crimes do not 20 in
waves. St. Paul may be more or less
affected by this epidemic of husbands
who have more wives than the law al
lows, but Minneapolis is in the very
throes of it. We never can catch up
with that enterprising town up the
river, even in the matter Of crime.
fWhen Prof McVey wrote his account
or Minnesota, which was so badly gar
bled by the proofreader he should have
said that one of the chief products of
his town was bigamists. Perhaps he
dld and the proofreader left it out as
not being nice thing to go into such
an important book. 1t would have been
peasant to have one statement in that
screed true. When we have discussed
Ihls matter with the chief of police and
a psychologist or two wen write AGAIN
about bigamy.