The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-02-13

across the street TO play cards or you
say, Good! L can finish that soft Dill
low and manicure my nails? The iol-
Hest night in the week for some of the
women 1 know is Saturday night when
their husba nds all go to the club and
they meet regularly for a game of
whist, q chatting dish supper and a
hamfnerfest. taking the city directory
and going carefully through it giving
all their friends what's coming to
| them. Moreover, some women I know
go out so much in the evenings them
| selves, leaving their poor husbands at
| home alone that I am thinking of
starting a society for the Prevention
| of Cruelty to Husbands
What these matrimonial specialists
| fail to recognize, is that this cooling
| off process works both ways and that
| as far as the husband and wife are
| concerned it's benefit are mutual As
Dorothy Dix says a man gets married
| not to make love but to quit it, and
| women would be grateful for the same
privilege if the home journals would let
| them grow old and phlegnatic in peace
| and not persuade them that they must
wear themselves out trying to stay
tanning for the man who sits behind
the newspaper on the opposite side of
the table"
All this stuff one reads about the Gig
arctic habit among the women of the
smart sets in New York and other
American cities-do you suppose there's
anything in it? The sensational news
papers and writers who seek notoriety
by decrying fashionable follies are
largely responsible for the statement
that in metropolitan society the women
smoke, not only in the privacy of their
boudoirs but in public restaurants and
cafes and that the old custom of lcdv-
ing the men to their brandy and cigar
cites after dinner has entirely gone out
since the women began to suspect that
all the best talk and cleverest stories
were brought on with this last and for
merly exclusively masculine course
But how much is there in It2 The
custom in a small provincial western
town could hardly be cited as lndica-
tive of fashionable modes and manners
elsewhere but 1t is certain that IL smok
ing for women mas received social
recognition in other places Topeka is
hopeless in its pleoefan responsibility
The hostess who would serve cigarettes
to her women guests after dinner here
and set the example by t'coolly" light
ing one herself, like the villain in the
melodrama after he has been 'hl ought
to bay by the hero and the detectives
would create-a sensation? Say, rather
a panic!
They do say, though, and perhaps
they" noted for many inaccuracies
are right for once, that at girls
luncheon given here not SO ,ong ego
cigarettes were served with the coffee
and that the hostess setting the Eace,
nearly all the guests sTnoked.
There were some who refused. but
they professed to be not at all snockeu
But this instance saVorS of the via
debauches of boarding school girls, VINO
imagine that they are adding greatly
to their sophistication and worldly ex-
perience if they manage to get poA
of Turkish cigarettes for the surrep-
titious pink pa jana teas" in the secrecy
of the dormitories, and who hint darby
afterward of Dacchana4jan revelrlss.
-so1~@ \
Such a desperate piece OF WlcKeohess -
an episode of almost every college girl
reckless past. AS they get the same
sensation of diablerie, however, with
Iessened chance of being made Ill, when
in wild spirit of reckless braVado
they toast narshmallows on the END
of a hatpin or eat olives out of a bottle,
using the same useful instrument as
fork the cigarette habit cannot be SAID
to gain a very strong hold on them
during the process of their education.
1t may be. however. that the women
of the smart set do smoke-rnost OF US
have no way of knowing. 1t is true
that they are not often seen doing so
in public in spite of what we read to
the contrary, except in those frankly
and professedIy bohemian resorts
where, except for the occasional curious
sightseer or tourist. the company can
scarcely be said to be of the upper
crust socially. A Topeka woman who
has Travelled extensively in this country
and Europe who has visited the fash |
resorts at the height of their seasons,
and who has lived in most of the large |
hotels in the principal cities of both !
continents saws: "I have yet to see
woman smoking in public in America,
except among the cracker class in the
south. In Paris at the Moulin Rouge
and in the cafes chantant of the Latin
quarter I have seen women smoke, and
was told that some of the American |
girl students We're addicted to the |
cigarette habit. but the women L saw |
were plainly grisettes and demi- |
mondaineS.
II have always heard that Russian
women in fashionable life smoke but |
at least saw nothing of it in their fash
ionab hotels and cafes. In London |
where the smart set dimes so frequently /
in public and where the ordinaire as
well as the small private dining rooms |
of the big restaurants are filled with
smartly dressed parties, the women in
variably in very low bodices and big |
picture hats and wearing all the jewels
they can crowd on-which all seems t
such bad taste to an unaccuStomed eye, |
although 1 see they are taking up the |
fad to a great extent on this side too
I never saw a woman with lighted or |
unlighted cigarette in her mouth. And |
I firmly believe that it would create as |
much comment in New York or San |
Francisco, certainly the two most cos |
mopolitan of American cities, as it |
would in Topeka or Podunk. This of
course is no evidence that women of ex-
allied station here and abroad do not