The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-05-18

| WEN
Dame Fashion abruptly lowers the
former and promises US by fall skirt
with a width of nine yards at the
feet. The fulfillment of the latter
prophecy remains to be seen, but the
normal waist line is an established
| fact. The pretty afternoon toilet of
wolfe pictured here shows this newer
line The skirt, in sweeping length.
| closes directly down the front. The
bodice is decorated with shaped
| bertha of fine net lace, dyed to match
the gown-a soft dove grey. Chemi-
| settle of ecru net and crushed sleeves
| of the wolfe complete the toilet.
\ y
A Society Sermon.
1t is estimated that a girl who has
been out a few years has wasted
enough time and money on society to
perfect her in a profession or estab-
fish her in a business that would make
her self-respecting and self-support-
ing. A Topeka girl who is taking a
swing around the circle visiting her
kin and out of town friends, on a last
desperate man-hunt, has announced
that if there is nothing doing this
summer she will come home in the
newspaper work, kindergarten or
Art. and prepare to earn her living
in some legitimate way instead of de-
pending upon the uncertain hope of
husband. The resolution is a worthy
one and 1t is a pity she did not decide
upon it earlier, and spend the time
and money she has wasted in the five
years since she left school learning
how to take care of herself. By now
she might have been provided with an
! 10 int iF1C q on
settled in life and independent. One
year in society after she leaves
school is long enough for any girl in
average circumstances. 1t is a good
thing to let her CAD for year in or
der to see how little it all amounts to
Otherwise she might always feel that
she had been cheated and had missed
some of the priceless pleasures which
the society girl enjoys. But after
the year is over, instead of starting
| in on a. second season exactly like the
| first in every respect except that
most of the sweet has been cheWed
out of the gum, she, or the people
who are responsible for her, should
| decide upon her occupation, and she
should go to work seriously. BY quit
ting the giddy whirl before 1t quits
her she will save herself much en-
| bitterment and disappointm ent and be
| able tolook back upon heryear or fr1-
volity with the genuine pleasure with
There Is nothing sadder than a girl
who has been out for two or three
years and who although she has been
popular and successful and sought af-
| ter, is beginning to tire of the mo-
notonous round of social diversions,
but doesn't know what else to do. 1t
| used to be, only a few years ago, that
girl in this predicament married
anybody who would have her, in order
to escape from the wearytng routine
| y l. rfn.k4w Dat
nowadays, when, after three or four
years on the market, she sees no
chance of a husband of her liking,
the society girl in ordinary circum-
stances goes to work, joins college
settlement, takes q, position in a girls
school or goes into business. Even
the rich girls who have no pressing
financial need, such as drives poor
girls into marriages for which they
haIa TO inclination, become bored
with their meaningless, purposeless
existence, and if they don't marry ana
rear a family fly in desperation to a
Career of some sort, try Art or phil
anthropy or anything that Will take
them out of themselves and the stiff
ling atmosphere of their narrow, con-
ventional, useless lives.
You may say what you please about
parents wishing to keep their girls at
home, the average father and mother
with a daughter in society are as
anxious to get her off their hands as
she is to leave them. Pride often pre-
vents their letting their girls go to
work for themselves when they leave
| school but it doesn't keep them from
throwing their daughters at the heads
| of any man with money enough to
support them. For what else, but the
hope of marrying them, do the faith
| erS encourage, or at least allow ex-
penses beyond his means in the way.
| of clothes and entertaining and other
| details necessary to a social career :?
| For what else do the mothers go
without clothes themselves. do the
homework to save the Daughters
! hands and leave her leisure for gad-
| ding, make her clothes, and slave in
the kitchen getting ready for her
| company? To deny that they receive
every new eligible man who so much
as calls with trembling hope. is alb
surd. Half the people who have
daughters in society live from hand
to mouth. No matter how much
| money they have most of them spend
! it all and more. The woman who
keeps two servants Is no less anxious
than the mother who does her own
Homework to see her daughter well
| married. the only difference being in
| their ideas as to the amount of mon
| ely that "well-married" means to
them. The girl knows we'll enough
what is expected of her and that If
she is not married by the time she is
| twenty-five she is regarded as a fail
ure and a disappointment. Besides a
girl who lives at home and has no
| especial interest in life, is eager to be
| in a home of her own. No woman
| likes living in another womans house,
even If the other woman is her moth
| er. Few mothers and daughters live
4 SO So1I 49, he W