The Topeka state journal., 1905-09-09
Of Interest
TO Women.

FugntS! said girl at the circus the
other night. she's like the poor be-
nighted' Hindoo-she does the best
she kin do-but nobody notices her
There's so much else going on: the
girl in the blue tights in the middle
ring, the barebacked rider in red, the
three pairs of acrobats, the strong
man, and all the clowns and dogs and
things, to say nothing of a dozen
meek, unobtrusive little Japs, who ap-
parently drop from the sky and who
are suddenly discovered in unexpected
out-of-the-way corners lying on their
backs amusing themselves by balanc-
ing umbrellas and barrels and things
on their feet. It's no wonder nobody
has time to look at her.
Still she's doing a very clever lit
tie stunt, and il it were featured in
the bills and she were given the mid
die ring she'd be a winner. AS 1t is,
she might just as well stay in her
dressing room for all the performance
or the audience would miss her. If
were she, I'd get into a one-ring
circus where I could be a part of the
show.
"That girl in pink tights reminds
me of lots of girls l know. They're
pretty, clever, capable. accomplished
and interesting, but nobody notices
them, and they're positively nobodies.
Sometimes they haven't started right
selected the wrong parents, or
something like that: sometimes
they're like George AIDES country girl
who had all the component parts of
a peach but didn't know how to make
a showing. Anyway they're woefully
neglected and it's wonderful the pa
tience with which they continue to
go on daily and nightly with their
little stunts that nobody looks at, just
like that girl in the pink tights, be-
cause it's their business and they
on their makeup as carefully as if
there were somebody to notice how
they look, planning and making and
wearing pretty clothes that nobody
sees, doing their turns the best they
can, and living in hope of playing a
"They make my heart ache, those
little daily tragedies under the Big
Top. I feel SO sorry for girls who
would like to have good time and
don't know how and have nobody to
teach them or to help them. People
talk about managing mother as
though she were a sort of monster
crazy to marry her daughter off to a
rich man, and in that phase she's GER
tainly not admirable, but a managing
mother is all right, as usual thing,
and every girl should have one-a
sensible, tactful, experienced woman,
who knows the beneficial results on
the Young Persons nature of having
a good tirne'-that is, liking lots of
people and being liked by them,
which is all a good time amounts to,
anyway. Nothing is worse for
young girl than to feel herself neglect
SO quickly as being out of all the fun
that other young people Of her age
and class enjoy. She is so lonesome
and so wretehed it breaks my heart
to see her, and I always think it's her
mothers fault, if she has one.
''There's no reason why any average
girl shouldn't have a good time. It's
so easy to make her happy and II she
doesn't know how herself. it's so easy
to plan and arrange her fun for Eer.
wish I could take charge of about
fifteen or twenty girls I know who are
generally regarded as failures, socially.
know just what I'd do. Some OF
them ia send away. on long visits to
kin-they only require featuring in
new field-their old audiences have
come to regard them in a matter of
fact way fatal to popularity. Others
I'd send to smaller toWns-lt can al
with their commonplace act in a one
ring circus. There are others who
need nothing but new 'act-they sit
around the house all day practcing
scales or doing embroidery when they
should be out playing tennis or golf
and meeting the men who would like
them if they only knew them. And
then there are those who have nobody
to visit. no money for travel or amuse-
mentS-I would put them to work:
teach 'em to pound a typewriter and
send them out into the cold, cold world
to join the great army of poor work
ing girls. They'd probably roar at the
idea and so would all their respectable,
ence would be the best thing in the
world for them. It's my belief that
nobody has SO many suitors and so
many chances to marry, other things
fxra4v1 4l1r f,,-~ S--1
OF course the heiress hunters have no
time for her. but that's to her advant-
age. She meets solid, substantial eli
g1ble business men every day and you
know propinquity does the business:
part of them invariably want to marry
her. Take any old maid school teach
er in country town who has never
had a proposal in her life, teach her
to sstenog' and send her away to a
new field and she'll have a, lover in six
months.
Now and then you find a girl who
doesn't have good time, mopes at
home alone with nothing doing, who
needs nothing but a love affair to bring
that, even at the risk of making her
unhappy for a time. All she needs to
make her live wire is to have the
current turned on and if that didn't do,
d try red pepper capsules and hypo-
dernlic injections of ginger. There's
lots of ways of getting out of the side
rings and into the middle one if one
only knows them.''
There seems to be a field for new
organization: The Family of the Groom
or some such title. When a girl is
married all her kin go to the wedding
and weep copiously as though they had
Lost Her Forever and it is supposed to
be the proper thing. The groom's family
however are expected to sit and look on
dry-eyed and stoical, although as matter
of fact they are the bereaved ones, if
it is a case of bereavement. For when
girl marries her parents far from los
ing a daughter gain a son at the ex-
pense of his relatives. 1t is no wonder
that mother hates to see her son get
married: henceforward he belongs to
his wifes people, not to her. So there is
talk OF organizing for the protection of
the groom's kin in order that if mans
mother and sisters have succeeded by