The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-10-15

g T was the Visiting Girl who was
talking. DO you know she
said the thing that strikes me
more than anything else about
Topeka, socially, is that it is a
marrying town. Places differ
remarkably in this respect and speak
from the wide experience of a profess
siOnal gadder. [ can tell you, Off-hand.
the matrimonial prospect rating of any
town in the United States and ! am
almost ready to say that in this par
is a dandy town for the Visiting Girl,
especially if she is on the man hunt,
and the Visiting Girl usually is.
ITO be sure, to say that Topeka is a
marrying town is only another way OF
saying that its young people are old
fashioned. for of course, there can't be
so much smoke without some FIRE IN
connection with all this modern race
/ suicide talk, although people still mar
/ ~. more or less. every place. But in
/ Toueka they marry earlier and oftener
that last not with regard to indiVid-
uals. for this is distinctly rot q di-
vorcee'S community. but to society IN
general. Topeka has more young mat
rOns and fewer old maids than any
town [ ever visited and yet the girls
here are classed as old maids younger
than they are in other towns. OF
/ course I use the term merely for want
of better one, and don't refer to
women who have reached the hope
+ less age=if there is such an age any
mOre=but to girls in the neighbOrhoOd
Eof say. tWenty-seVen. In other towns
that is the average brides age, nova
days. but in Topeka I would say it is
/ twenty-five.
Here the girls come out young, not
so much because they want to or be-
cause their mothers push them, but
to supply a popular demand for more
buds created by the prompt marrying
off of the crop that preceded them
There are eightor ten debutantes in To
lpeka who went out some last winter
and who viii be fairly out this season
who are all the way from seventeen
Il to nineteen In two years most of
them viii be married. if they follow
the example Of the bellies who have
gone before. It IS so unusual for q
Topeka girl to go past twenty-five
without marrying that the five or SIX
very charming, youthful, popular and
pretty girls who are all that are left
OF the crop Of debutanteS OF seven
or eight years ago and whose ages
range from twenty-fur to twenty
eight are spoken OF by the younger
members of their set as the old girls.
! Indeed, there is a more recent set girls
who have been out only about four
years and who are not over twenty
one who are called the older girls, by
the buds of last season and this. In
no other town that have ever visited
would those oldest girls be regarded as
a bad risk nlatrimonially, or their
] tendency to cling to the parent stem
De viewed Win alarm. ana 1 QOn
know that that is the opinoin here, but
at least their continued spinsterh God
has occasioned comment. Every place
else it would be regarded as q matter
of course
Another somewhat unusual thing
4 about Topeka is that the town girls
+ marry the town boys and an imported
4 bride or groom is a novelty. If you be-
+ gin with the first settlers and follow the
local history to the present day you
viii find that the sons of the prominent
families have married the neighbors
daughters Everybody here knows whom
everybody else's parents were, and nat
urally everybody has lots of local kin
This is bad in the case of a family skel-
eton to be hidden. but I don't believe
ever knew a town where there were as
few family skeletons and as few moi
some society scandals as in Topeka. sc
1t works all right after all.
lone might naturally wonder, if the
Topeka men marry the Topeka girls
where the Visiting Girls chances come
in. but in another respect in which To
men, There are enough to go around
and some over. andInever knew q towr
that showed the Visiting Girl q. better
a view to getting a husband, she usually
succeeds This is so Wen known tina
the matchmaking natrons who have
unmarried girl friends in other town.
bring them here and fit them out witt
husbands to taste There is one LITTLE
] town way back east they tell me, whicl