The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-03
gDra0 lNTEREST 20
% - WOVEN.
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Talk about itr' said the Blessed In
nocent, Striding about the room with
his hands in his pockets and his ridicu-
lous little coat pulled up to his waist
line in the back. Guess we're getting
somewhat finished, here in Topeka,
when the men are house broke enough
to go to an afternoon tea. Say, what'u
it come to bine-bye, do you s'pose? I'm
beginning to fear the passing of the
day when all a man needs to put up q
front in the local smart set is a decent
business suit and any old kind of a
dress suit. S'pose people will be get
ting hn1cky and criticise the tails of
ones evening coat hanging down below
ones everyday overcoat and discrimin-
ate between an opera hat and any old
silk hat? I imagine We'u all have to
come out in these toppy afternoon Jugs
If we're to go to afternoon teas and
tan shoes with evening dress won't be
in it for a gaucherie with a colored top
coat over a frock coat. I dare say the
time'n come when a fellow won't find
any one at home if he makes the blum
der of getting mixed on his dinner coat
and his evening coat and it may be that
these dikey little morning coats will
come into general use out here in the
wild and woolly and all the fellows will
know when and where they may take
the place of the frock.
Il wish you'd tell me how it is a wo-
man manages. The girls out here
haven't any more money than the men
(maybe not as much-Tve discovered
that these swagger pocketbooks they
carry are usually a big bluff, if their
fathers support 'em) but they can al
ways make showing. They have the
right clothes for the right time, know
how to wear them and are on to all
the league rules for the present year
in the society game. No girl from Yonk-
them Nv where or to eet of Me- thea can ba ae
lived in Topeka, Kan, all their lives?
Do they read it in the Sile Talks or
how do they get next? And how is it
I,0A ell
one new overcoat every second year a
girl has the right kind of wrap and hat
for every gown? You never see her
wearing a dancing frock under a street
cloak and although she may have to go
to a reception in a street car none of
the carriage crowd is logged out more
fit and proper.
You take the fellows-as George AIDE
says, even the most Exclusive Circles
are clogged up with a lot of Counter
feits who belong in the Hay Fields
But when 1t comes to antecedents the
girls aren't much better, but see how
they put it over US in this pink tea
game. The best of US make a good
many awkward plays but there never
was social situation girl wasn't
equal to whether it was a new one on
her or not. She'll go right up against
a new game with all her sang froid,
aplomb savior faire and all that sort of
thing you know and she gets away
with with it, too. Money doesn't seem
to make much difference either Some
of the girls whose fathers work for sal
aries put up as good front, as far as
a poor, benighted man can judge, as the
only daughter of a national bank.
But that's the way with a woman.
You set her down Unexpectedly in any
society or in any alien condition and
in three weeks she'll be talking their
lingo and wearing their toys as if she'd
been used to it all her life. Take
mixed bunch of petticoats from New
York, Boston, Baltimore and Omaha,
and you'll never be able to tell which
is which until they open their mouths
and you get the accent. The western
girl may never have been farther east
than St. Louis but her clothes would
not betray it nor her manner nor her
walk. Six weeks after a new style of
hair dressing is introduced in New
York, some one springs it in Topeka.
and when a western girl goes on east
for visit you'd suppose she'd been
used to chaperones and the men call
ing in the afternoon all her life.
That's the first thing these superior
eastern people who visit out here rema 45s
girls-how well the girls look and how
civilized they act, and how lumpy most Of
the men are. There's nothing wrong with
their coiffures or their hats, but it seems
we don't know how to have our hair cut
We go to church in business clothes: we're
so vulgar we have to work in the daytime
haven't anything between a sack coat and
full evening dress to wear when were
asked out informally Tor Oinner ana we
can't be trusted to hand the cups around
at afternoon tea. Eastern visitors spend
most of their time marveling at the diff
ferences and wondering how the girls can
put up with US and give such good imi-
tation of enjoying it.
you take the Elks' minstrel parade the
other day-it brought out every silk hat
in town, of whatever age, color or pre-
yious condition of servitude-and then
there were a lot of fellows in Derbys,
yachting caps and soInbreros bringing up
the rear like the supers in the mob scene.
Now if there had been call for the .wo-
men to go on dress parade in their glads
every man in the Elzs' show could have
produced a wife. daughter, sister, mother
or sweetheart lit UP to the limit in fault
less taste and style from head to foot, and
without borrowing from the neighbors
renting from the fashion emporiums,
either. How do you explain it? Is it be-
cause women are naturally in the know
about such things or do they have so
much that there's nothing left for the
men? You tell. It beats me-"
1.-The light that shines in woman's
eyes may not be wholly natural" says a
New York society letter. when comment
is made on the brilliancy of Mrs. Frank
Dicks eyes she laughs and suggests the
old fashion of eating Jumps Of sugar soak
ed in cologne. In that covert hint there
may be a long story. Miss Cynthia Roche