Evening Star Newspaper, April 6, 1895, Page 20

20 THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1895-TWENTY-FOUR PAGES. MATTER OF SKIRTS The Latest News About This Impor- tant Dress Feature. THE DOWN COURSE OF SLEEVES Blazer Suits Will Be as Common as Ever This Spring. SUMMER FROCK 4 Written Exclusively for The Evening Star. FRENCH AUTHOR- ity on skirts says that a properly hang- ing skirt is one of the first necessities of the well-dressed wo- man, and that the fluted full skirts which are now the proper thing are by no means easy to construct. Then it goes on to say of the Prevailing modes in skirts that the circle skirt cut so much on the lines of the old umbrella, although much fuller, is one of the decided favorites. For wide goods it is especially adapted, and is graceful and pretty. Tke front and sides are all in one, the sides being very bias; the back is straight in the center, the seams on each side heing sloped in order to conform to the flaring pleats. Most of these skirts show a couple of box pleats, rather than the godets which were paramount last winter. Gath- 2ret backs are also used, and this style is especially adapted to the soft and trans- parant materials. such as crepon, barege or grenadine. Another pretty skirt shows a big box pleat and has full ripple sides. For the heavy traveling dresses made of serge, cheviot or camel's hair, there is a skirt that has no fullness whatever about the belt, the skirt being so constructed that it falls in soft flutes about the feet. For the single width goods the nine gored skirt 1s admirably adapted, for the gores do away with all the piecing that spoils the circle skirts. The skirts average from five to eight yards around, six being the com- promise. The excessive stiffening in the back widths is nearly abandoned, as it will crush and spoil the set of the dress. Skirts fre not much trimmed at the foot, but there is a tendency to trim more as the season ativances. Every woman under- stands the advantage of having her foot or her hand enveloped in a fluff of ruffles to take away from the effect of the size, and it is not likely that ruffies on thin dresses will be abandoned for any length of time. For evening dresses a thick rose ruching of silk, lace or tulle is quite popular. Now there is information enough about skirts to last a whole month, because they will not change a bit in that length of time. As to sleeves? Well, for one thing they should in no instance be of the same ma- terial as the waist to which they are fas- tened. That isn’t always a pretty style, but “fashion” is seldom right pretty; it is only when you take it and adapt it to your own needs that it amounts to anything. Sagging sleeves are by all odds the most stylish now worn, and The Star warned its readers two months ago that the sleeve was slipping clear off the shoulder down to the elbows. They are all worn very long, which makes them look slovenly, or very short, which, is ridiculous on a street gown. Think of weering a cloth gown with the sleeves stopping at the elbow, and long wrinkled gloves that crawl up the arm to cover the deficiency! But that is what you are going to neet on the avenue very soon. The flarirg aeeacnths century’ cuff that almost covers thé knuckels is much affected by some swell dressers, but do their best, the sleeves look as though they were a misfit and had got on the wrong ) Sacppes When the length is formed by e ruffles, they are not so bad. Some of the sleeves ere shaped on the outside of the arm and are corded with velvet, or have a strip of insertion as a finish. An odd fancy for a dress sleeve is velvet or crepon falling puffs, draped over a full undersle2ve of silk tissue or chiffon. The undersleeve seems to be creeping in, and will probably arrive before fall, if the puffs continue to slide on down to the wrist. Velvet for warm weather makes one feel “stuffy” at the very suggestion, but there is a soft light weight fabric that is scarce- ly heavier than bengaline, which is to be used for summer waists on cool evenings, and is being lavishly used now for capes and garniture on gowns. In fact, some of the skirts are made of it, too! Among shades emerald is the favorite, and you can't imagine anything much more regal than an emerald velvet gown with garni- ture of gold passementerie and fedora front of yellow silk. For some time it has seemed that there must be some other reason for the popu- larity of the violet than the Napoleonic craze, and it has come to light at last that the Princess of Wales and_ her daughter, the Duch- ess of York, are both partial to the wear- ing of violets, and that the Queen of England is even get- ting giddy in her old age and has a tiny bunch of violets on her queer, old-fash- foned bonnet,for you know Victoria has not changed the fashion of her hair, or her shoes, or her bonnet—except in color—for fifty yeers. The new ribbons are simply ravishing, and the prices! Why, they fairly take your breath. There is a new blue velvet ribbon, known as the Yale blue, brighter than sky and more vivid than turquoise, which fa less than three inches wide and costs $1.75 a yard, and it takes three yards to trim a simple dollar straw, but when a real artist twists that velvet into a bow and sticks it on that simple hat, she looks you square in the eyes and asks you $18 for the creation, and you pay it as meek and glad to get it at that. Dres- h wind-blown pos ed, and are 80 ons them are ve them as hats, without feat fo! trim so Well fol-dJe-re piling on the agony about bly hold on then simpl be they speedi the heavy bead trim- ture. In this con- nection it might be well to assure the fem- fmine world that blazer suits will be as common as ever, and with little change. There is a fine light-weight serge that is nearly as soft and dressy as silk, that will | make beautiful blazer suits. The skirt will be made without lMning, with a t something like the illustration—double or gle-breasted, or to flare open, w or both. With one of the pretty suits and a handsome extra waist a wo- men could go around the world in a grip sack, For a summer frock dotted swies will be quite popular. The style presented is sim- ple; just two pleated ruffles on the skirt, Ger with three rows of narrow velvet, which must be taken off when laundered, of course, and a charm- ing waist garniture of plaiting of swiss and a movable ber- tha of lace and vel- vet. The bertha could be worn witha number of gowns. Here is a sugges- tion in a pointed rip- ple cape, to be made of white broadcloth, 4 unlined and plain ao edges, and garniture of black lace and velvet ribbon. You can see at a glance that it is quite a stylish wrap, and not necessarily a costly one. For a child, a simple and pretty frock can be made after this fashion. The little guimpe is of dotted swiss and has the full under-sleeve effect that mamma will soon be wearing. The sole trimming of the dainty wool gown may be the feather stitching such as outlines the hem—the frock is unlined—and the edge of the Square-cut bertha, or it may have lace set on around the neck and belt. A ribbon sash with big bows and knotted ribbon around the neck would be just as pretty. —_-—_ _ TEN DAYS IN A TREE. With Nothing but Chinese Medicines and a Pair of Boots to Eat. From the Oroville Mercury. A Chinese miner, who, with a companion, was lost In the snow amid the’ rugged mountains of Plumas county, has been found, nearer dead than alive. For ten days he lived in a holiow-tree, with noth- ing to eat but some Chinese medicine and scraps of leather cut from his boots. When rescued by a party of white miners his feet, from which ke had cut the boots for food, were terribly frozen, and he was so weak he could hardly move. The search- ers could find no trace of his companion, who 1s certain to have perished. There are a large rumber of Chinese mining at Brown’s Hill, and February 25 two of the rumber left the camp to go to La Porte, a distance of sixteen miles, to Procure scme Chinese medicine, for the use of the members of the camp. The weather was good, and the two Chinese proceeded safely over the snow to La Porte, procured the medicine, stayed over night and started back the next morning. During their trip back on the 26th a snow- storm came up and the Chinese became bewiidered and hopelessly lost in the rough, mountainous country. They each had different ideas as to which direction to take, and finally quarreled and separated. One of them had not gone far before he found a hollow tree, wherein he was some- what sheltered from the storm. He had matches with him and built a small fire, and, crouching over that, he lived for ten day When their companions did not re- turn to Brewn’s Hill the Chinese became alarmed and went to La Porte, where they ascertained that they had been there and started back, Then the white men about Cascade and Lumpkin were notified and search parties went out. The other day John Kitrick, while search- ing with a comparion for the lost man, noticed smoke down in a canon. He went down there, and in a tree found the poor Chinese nearly dead. Leaving him there, Mr. Kitrick went for help, and the unfor- tunate man was taken to the settlement on a sled. His experience during those ten days had been fearful. As the pangs of hunger came upon him he took off his boots, parched them over the fire, and ate them and drank the medicine. When he found his boots were all gone and his feet frozen, and he was so weak he could not stand, he had given up all hope. So grateful was he that when camp was reached he gave his rescuers $50 in gold dust, all that he had. He will recover. ——_+e-- Usgliness of a Princess. From London Truth. The Metternichs in Paris during the sec- ond empire made their mark at once by the style of their equipages, their aristo- cratic mode of spending money, the ele- gant figure of the princess, her wondrous | chic, her air of breeding, her wild spirits, cleverness in repartee, independent ways and insolence. Her striking but not dis- agreeable ugliness was also in her favor. It gave one an agreeable shock the first time one saw her. The face hardly seemed human. Her flat nose, wide mouth, ex- tending literally from ear to ear, poor forehead and curious eyes, were a sur- vival of far-back Hurnish ancestors on the Sandor side. The figure was slender and flexible as a willow rod, and everything she wore suited her. She said and did exactly as she pleased; laid down the social law by going in for social lawlessness to the Em- press Eugenie, and made Theresa the fashion by taking lessons from her. The- resa went to the Austrian embassy to give them. The princess expressed astonish- ment at finding that famous singer of the Alcazar tres comme il faut, and Theresa at finding the ambassadress ‘aussi canaille que moi.” ee In the Harem. Frem the Philadelphia Times. The modern Turk has, in a quiet way, grown prcdigiously fond of photography, said a lady who acts as the manageress of one of the greatest photographic establish- ments in London. I was recently in the employment of a relation at Constanti- nople, and I hed the honor of photograph- ing some fifty of the wives and daughters of the present sultan. These ladies are very ordinary ones, indeed, for the most part, to what your imagination might pic- ture, and all of them are dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, that is, for pho- tographic purposes. All the same, one or two of the sultan’s daughters are very beautiful girls, and have been taught and educated by Miss Mumford and other En- glish governesses. They showed the most childish delight in being photographed. I may say here that photography is act- ing as a social force in Turkey, for a young man who wishes to take to himself a wife need no longer trust absolutely to the re- port of his female friends alone, as he once had to do, for the photgraph of the lady ts now shown to him. And the women, too, can now, without violating the strict Tur- kish law in such matters, send their photo- graphs about in order to create an impres- sion. + 0 How It is Done. From the Hartford Courant. “Don’t you find it rather difficult to get rid of them?” was asked of the man who is making a specialty of Trilby tableaux ‘with society women in the title role. “Oh, no. Whenever a woman doesn’t suit I tell her that her feet are too small.” —s- How She Knew. From Life's Calendar. Tommy—"Yes, cats can see in the dark, and so can Ethel; ’cause when Mr. Wright walked into the parlor when she was sittin’ all alone in the dark, I heard her say to him, ‘Why, Arthur, you didn’t get shaved today.’ ” —___—--+ee— i, I argued for French, music and ig, but her father insists on moral y, pronunciation and table man- ATTRACTIVE WOMEN The Real Meaning of Being “Left Out of Things.” LARGELY THEFAULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL What Mental and Physical Neglect Results In. MINDS UP TO DATE ee Written Exclusively for The Evening Star. Y= WON'T BE- \ lieve it, I suppose, but I do hate to give up my youth! Of course, we say that as long as the heart is young it makes no difference about the face, but you know it does. That when the lines begin to come around your eyes and the wrinkles about your neck; when you have to put on spec- tacles to read at night, and humor your feet, you know that when that time comes they begin to leave you out of things, no matter how young your heart may feel.” I looked up from the magazine I was glancing through and saw at the table next to mine a group of ladies whom I knew, all quite deeply interested in ‘dis- cussing the deplorable “going off” in looks of various women whom they knew. Rather an odd subject for luncheon gossip in a pub- lic restaurant. On leaving, I paused to pass the compliments of the day and atmost unconsciously I found myself taking a mental picture of Miss Minnie, wno had expressed her regret at being “‘left out of things.” Miss Minnie is a dear good woman, but not a comfortable one. She ought to have been called Martha instead of Minnie, be- cause she is one of the careful troubled tribe. The picture that I carried away in my mind -was not a pretty one. Miss Minnie has reached the age, meanly called “uncertain” by would-be funny people. Way back in the springtime of her life, when her ash-colered locks were thick and golden, and her eyes as bright as twin stars, I used to see her with her lover and she was as bonnie a matden as one would wish to see. Something happened, and the lover went away, whether in anger or not, nobody ever knew but Miss Minnie, I think, but, anyhow, he never came back, for the ship in which he sailed was lost at sea. You have seen a beautiful peach, large and luscious looking, hanging on the tree long after the others have been picked, and have gathered it, expecting to have a great treat, but when you set your teeth in it, lo, it was soured and bitter. That was what happened to Miss Minnie—young and beautiful, she soured on human kind. For years she shut herself away from the world, and devoted herself to the care of her motherless brothers and sisters—it was about that time that her father failed and her mother died. She was a good sister, but not a kind one. Ske was a girl of splendid rearing and sterling worth, but you know even sterling silver has to be kept burnished and bright to make people admire it, and Miss Minnie shut all her shine unjler a black crust of reserve, till people got to almost dislike her. The boys grew up and went off to hunt their own fortunes. The girls blossomed into lovely womanhood, and they, too, went away, into homes of their own. Then Min- nie was left alone with her father in the big house they had got back again. It was a desperately lonely life after the last one had gone, and, unconsciously, Miss Minnie turned back to the world she had thrust aside ten years before. Her Own Fault After All. Ten years is a long time to take out of the heart of a Hfe that has just begun. It is not missed so much after one’s life has passed the eqyinoctial and entered the calmer waters where the waves reach the other shore, but Miss Minnie did not rea- lize the gulf that would have to be bridged, and was continually hurting herself on the sharp edges of the changes that had taken place. She had let herself get careless of her personal appearance. She had old- fashioned ideas about etiquette, and older fashioned ones about her attire. She lacked in finesse, and in that indefinable thing called tact, and was hopelessly behind the age in thought and action. Really, it was almost pitiful to see her when she first came back into the world. It was like one who had all her life been used to a candle, being ushered suddenly into the full glare of an electric light; it confused and be- wildered her. “They begin to leave you out of things,” she said, but the fact of the matter was she left herself out of things, and when she got ready to take hold again “things” had left her in the lurch, and her old friends having formed a world of their own she fitted in nowhere, and not being adaptable enough to make a social niche for herself she gradually drifted into phil- anthropic and mission work, because her empty hands craved employment. She wase| not quite fitted for it by nature, for she had grown severe and overcritical in her retirement, and often found that she was harsh when she meant to be only just, but confact with the world began to soften her, and I often see in her now gleams of the same sunny nature that made her so companionable when she was a girl. But I am afraid it is too late to regain her lost chances. She has been too long out of touch with the world. My mental pic- ture of her is that of one who is utterly hopeless, so far as the graces of life are concerned. She is thin and sallow and an- gular. Her hair is uneven, faded and stringy. Her tones are severe, her man- ners stiff, her attire almost outre, betraying utter lack of taste or personal pride. It seems incredible that in the little more than a decade since she slipped out of so- ciety that she should have so deteriorated. She has not even kept up with the world of books, and that, in a woman of Min- nie’s mental endowments, is simply un- pardonable! The Selfishness of Children. Women make a fearful mistake when they let go their hold on the social world and shut themselves up, jealously, oftimes morbidly, at home with their tiresome round of duties and the rearing of their children. There is no grander mission in life than that of the mother, but no mother should be a slave. Her duty to the boys and girls who are of her own flesh and blood lies as much outside of the home as in it. If she sits down behind closed doors and feeds the growing minds of her little ones only from what she has stored up she will find, bye and bye, that she is a cistern, and not a well, and that the day will come when her resources will be exhausted—and what then? Her children will go out into the world, enter schools and colleges, broaden and widen, while she stands still, and then the day will come when they will say of her that she has outlived her usefulness. Of course, they won't say that if they are children worth having, but if their mother does not keep up with them—yes, even a little ahead, so that they can look up to her—instead of selfishly sacrificing herself to their whims and sinking her individu- ality in their childish demands, she incul- cates in them the spirit of selfishness which will in the end shove her out to make room for those more active and use- ful. You know you have seen such in- stances—many of them. What of the husband of such a wife? Is she doing her duty by him when she makes herself subservient to his children and for- gets to keep by his side and apace with him intellectually and socially? A man does not like to say to his wife, “You are fading. You do not dress in as good taste as you once did. You are no longer interested in the same things that I am.” Those would be brutal things for a man to say to a woman whom he loved. and yet there are men who must think those thoughts when their wives are careless, slipshod and spiritless—things that were once foreign to their nature as frost at the equator. If a woman won't keep up with her husband you can’t blame him for being ashamed of her. A Woman Who is Honored. It stands to reason that the mother, who is fond of pretty clothes, and who brushes and cares painstakingly for the hair her husband thought so_beautiful when she was only his sweetheart, who dce§ her werk with a view to protecting the taper fingers “he” admired when he was ‘‘court- ing” her, who saves:her eyes by letting small dresses and drawers go with fewer frills and tucks, that; she anay be able to (ie the last political leader to her hus- band, or look up a point in history for her boy, se believes that the pure ul has got to have a clean ‘body to live in, who goes upon the theory that men do not gather figs of thistles, or fine thoughts from a brawier’s brain, who comprehends that a lie from her tips produces two on those of her child, who believes implicitly that “whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap’’—I say'it stands to reason that such a woman will walk right beside her husband and children wherever theyg0, and she won't have to plead for recogni- tion elther. The world is always delighted to honor such a woman. She seldom has much faith in “clubs” for either men or women, and she is always too much of a lover of dainty dress to look with approving eyes upon “‘re- form” garments, which, to her artistic eyes, would tend to deform the figure she has been careful to keep supple and youthful in its lines. She may have gray hair and be obliged to wear glasses, but on the cheeks that Time has touched so gently there is still a flush of health, and about her smil- ing mouth care has drawn no’ lines nor ill temper -left its indelible tracks. Do you think a woman like that -“Is left out of things?” No, indeed! She is right in it all, and makes more fun than anybody. If she chides you, she does it with a cheery grace that after all comforts you, and you know that you may rely upon her advice and counsel, because she is in the world and right up to date on every subject. Her, Best Age. But take a worran like Miss Minnie! Oh, what a mistaken idea of one’s duty and ac- countability such people must have, and how dearly they pay for their hard-learned lessons. At a literary club the other day I heard a mother read an essay on “Fash- fon; Its Uses and Abuses.” She under- stood her subject and invested it with fresh interest for all. “It is a woman's duty to array herself as becomingly as pos- sible and to study how to make herself more pleasing to the people whom she meets,” said this wise woman. “A woman behind the age in anything is a woman who has lost the key to her opportunities, and very soon she will lose the opportunt- ties also.” Now, isn’t that true? Can you not re- call just such instances? Here is Miss Minnie, just at the age when most women should be at their best, past the petty jealousies of youth and the trivial tri- umphs of eerly womanhood; settled in con- victions and judgment; assured of position and friends and power. What more could one ask for the perfected woman, whose graces of body and mind and character make her a natural leader? Yet here is one, who was given her talent along with the others, yet who voluntarily hid it away, and when she wanted to put it to some use found it so covered with tarnish that she could only rub it bright in spots; and she could only negotiate it at a dis- count. Soon she fcund, because of that rusty talent, which made but a poor ap- pearance among its up-to-date sisters, she was “being left out of things.” It was all her own fault, every bit of it! Those boys and girls would have grown up ir.to even better men and women than they did if she had tempered her care of them with a little common sense, and made her- self thetr companion as well as critic. It would have kept her young and fresh and made them stronger..But she failed to make that use of ker opportunities, and like the man who spent all his life in let- ting down empty buekets into empty wells, she must go on growing old in drawing nething up. It is sad, but self-inflicted. She dug the grave for ‘her own youth and shrouded herself in gullenness and reserve. She deliberately droye,all her charms to suicide, and now she musn’t whine because they cannot be resurrected. I worder how inany other women are dipping empty buckets into empty wells? SENORA SARA. _ FASHIONS IN, DRESS. The Latest Grentions Found Paris Establishments. From the European Editton Kew York Herald. I am able to describe to the readers of the Herald a series of the fewest “creations” which were submitted to my inspection. A handsome merning dress is of pearl gray cloth. Half ample skirt with three rows of little cometes buttons in black vel- vet almost touching one another; these three rows are repeated seven times at intervals of twenty centimeters. Tne body is a small vest with a waist- coat of white cloth, the collar and cuff in yellow batiste; cravat of black satin. To be worn with a bennet covered with cuckoo flowers and a velvet bow en aigrette. Another morning dress is in dark red cloth. The skirt is very wide and is cut in large points over gathered red taffetas. Blouse body in red taffetas with bretelles and sleeves of red cloth, broad waistband in red mousseline de sole ending at the back by an enormous butterfly bow without ends. The hat entirely of black poppies and on the chignon a bow of black taffetas of the same shape as that at the waistband of the costume. A dress for making calls is of lavender blue mousseline de laine. The skirt entire- ly of fluted mousseline de laine. The body, with flat sleeves, opens over a waistcoat of old white lace. The fichu is in the Marie Antoinette style, very full, and mousseline de soie of the same color as the dress, trim- med with three rows of flounces caught back three times at the shoulder in the form of an epaulette. This graceful fichu is completed by a bow at the side, attach- ed very high on the body. The bonnet ‘s of gathered lavender blue mousseline de sole with bunches of white roses. Another dress has a skirt of black satin in the form of a lamp shade, with flounces of black barege up to the waist; body of royal blue mousseline de soie, covered with tulle perle; sleeves very much puffed and not very large; waistband of royal velvet, with rosette at the back, yellow roses at the geck and velvet rosettes; worn with a very large white straw hat, black feather aigrettes of yellow roses. A dress for mcrning and family dinner wear has a plain skirt, with entre deux or cream colored lace bands of white mus- lin over a transparency of pearl gray silk; body exactly like the skirt in blouse form; revers in the form of a small shawl of pearl gray satin; pearl gray satin waist- band high up, kept in place by six antique buttons, three on each side. Another dress in similar style is pekinee, with entre deux of Valenciennes lace and black mousseline de sole over a transpar- ency of pink taffetas; body exactly like the skirt, with pink sleeves; neck and waist- band the same; pink satin bow in the “mariee de campagne” style and geranium flowers nearly down to the bottom of the skirt. : For demi-toilet bonnets should be worn extremely light in texture; Louis XVI style for preference, and covered with flowers. The “‘Gismonda” toque is very.fashionable. To go with this style a small cape of taffetas glace, covered with tulle and taf- fetas ruches and lined with China silk, ‘s very suitable, very elegant and quite new, with a small pockét at the side for the handkerchlef, the place being indicated by a small bunch of flowers or a butterfly bow of lace. There is also another little mantle, with large navy collar of old white lace, which is bordered on both sides with a black tulle ruche, frirged with Parma violets. Bunches cf flowers and a tulle ruche at the neck, a square sky, hue bow at the four corners. Zs in the —__—+9 4 __ A Trensured; Nickel. From the Philadelphia Record. ‘An ordinary five-¢ent,piece is carefully treasured by Artigt Frank Duckett of Philadelphia as a memento of General Grant. Mr. Duckett came into possession of this memento in this way: One day sev- eral years ago Mr. Duckett boarded a street car directly after a stout man,whose full brown beard and black slouch hat struck Mr. Duckett as familiar. A moment later he recognized his fellcw-passenger as General Grant, whom he had frequently seen during a sojourn at Washington sev- eral months previous. Mr. Duckett took a seat directly opposite the distinguished gentleman. The conductor came in to col- lect the fares. Mr. Duckett handed the conductor a dime, and at the same mo- ment General Grant gave the same official a nickel. The conductor turned the gen- eral’s nickel over to Mr. Duckett and rang up the fares. Mr. Duckett carefully stow- ed his “change” away in a separate pocket and has cherished the coin ever since, be- cause of its having been last used by the great soldier president. IDAINTY CONCEITS That Are Used to Convey the Easter Sentiment. THE PREVAILING FANCY IN SOUVENIRS Flowers and Candy and the Artistic Array of Receptacles. SOME IDEAS IN Pivce T HE IDEAL EASTER remembrance is in harmony with the in- fluences of the day, and it covers a mul- titude of gifts appro- priate in every way for the feast, the season and the indi- vidual tastes. From the simple Easter card the custom of exchanging gifts at this season has grown almost 8 widespread as Christmas giving. The Eas- ter displays in the shops in connection with the bright flowers, spring millinery, new goods and other temptations in the way of shoppers are made as much of in a business way. The fashions change, however, and what was considered as thoroughly artistic last year looks just a bit shabby now. The dainty elegance of what is to be had this spring in anticipa- tion of the demand shows the hold the fes- tival has in the popular favor. The Easter souvenir par excellence fs a flower. It represents all the sentiment of nature’s reawakening because it is her most choice gift to earth. ‘‘Behold the lily in its glory.” The odorous and waxy white’ blossom has grown to be typical of the day, and it is the queen of Easter fragrance and charm. If you know anything at all about flowets, and if you de you are just as sure to love them, it amounts to a post-graduate course in a floral edtcation to stop at a florist’s window or walk through the shop. All the bulbous plants are now in the height of their beauty. The lilies nod their handsome heads in a most patronizing way over the tulips, jonquils, azaleas and nar- cissil and the fragile lly of the valley. Genesta bushes, gorgeous in their coloring, are valued, as all yellow blossoms are in the spring, for decorative purposes. The blooming marguerites and spirea suggest the quiet of the churches, where so many of them will be used next Sunday. The violets and the pansies are sweeter than ever and no less attractive. No more delightful Easter gift can be imagined than @ pot of growing lilies, the earth around them hidden away under bunches of violets. A pretty jar filled wih cut lilies is another, or a box of violets, a bunch of roses, or roses mingled with white lilac. What could be sweeter and more suggestive of the feast. The flowers fade, but the thought which inspired the sending does not, nor that exquisite sense of enjoyment which comes to the receiver. Candy is Popular. After flowers the regulation Easter sou- venir is most likely to take the shape of candy, books, cards and all the pretty trifles, which have grown so fashionable in late years. The long fast from candy, which the feminine world is supposed to have been keeping all Lent, both in the interests of piety and health, makes it naturally a most welcome gift. When it comes hidden away in the beautiful and artistic bonbonnieres, which are supposed to be especially suggestive of the season then the gift is really of joy, if not forever, at least for a good long time. Three-fourths of all the novelties are either chicken or ega shape, or have this suggestion some- where in their make-up. As an Easter emblem, the egg is far ahead of anything else. Why it is so may be partly explained by the fact that the Lenten fast of the early churth did not permit the use of eggs any more than meat. At any rate the egg has the field, and nothing disturbs it. There are eggs of silver, china, glass and every other ma- terial as well as sugar. Some of the china and silver ones are superbly decorated, and can be put to many uses as a box. Many of the large cnes have music boxes hidden away in them. Tiny silver eggs, adorned with a wishbone or with fat Cupids astride of them, are other forms. When it gets right down to the daintiest conceits and surprises, you have to ad- mire the pretty things from Paris. Noth- ing to approach them are made in this country. In the window of a vaterer there are some enormous chocolate eggs. Mrs. Cleveland bought one for an Easter party last year for her little ones. Some Ingenious Devices. Some of the newest bonbonnieres are made of straw lace braid, so trimmed up with the satin bag HMning and the ribbon rosettes that if it was not for the little chick perched in one corner the whole af- fair might be taken for a new spring bon- ret. A pretty doll, dressed in a Watteau gown and a much beflowered-bonnet on her yellow curls, has concealed under her voluminous petticoats a receptacle for candy. A rush basket, the handles tied with Dresden ribbon, has a tiny duckling peep- ing out from the nest on top of the covers. These little chicks and ducklings once walked the earth, though they did not tar- ry long on it, and are not the manufac- tured imitations of infantile grace in the fowl line which so largely answers the de- mand at this season. Nothing more cun- ning can b3 imagined than gwo of these little balls of yellow fluffiness snuggled up in a nest. The knowledge, too, that unijer it is a satin-lined box full of candy helps to make it the mure convincing. All these things are imitated, and most successfully, in candy and ices, so that the whole set-out, hen, nest, chicks and all, can be eaten. One of the prettiest desserts to order for an Easter dinner or luncheon would be a broken sugar egs,decorated with sugar flowers and sugar butterflies and filled with either ice cream chicks or ice cream eggs—just as you please and in as may different colors as you like. Ora nest of spun sugar, filled with ice cream eggs, upon which a sugar hen sits, or with some of the eggs broken and a chick ready to step out and a sugar rooster standing by to give sweet encouragement. Little novelties in the way of sorbet cups, a broken egg mounted on wheels and drawn by a@ roos- ter, silver eggs on a leaf or little stands would make pretty bonbonnieres and lunch- eon favors. Some Appropriate Gifts. Those who can withstand the attractions of the confectioner’s art have treats ahead in the display of more lasting souvenirs— books, cards and the thousand and one large and small articles in the book and jewelry shops. In fact, anything to which @ card can be attached or a bow of ribbon tastefully adjusted can plume itself on be- ing an appropriate Easter gift. The Easter card pure and simple is not as popular— therefore not as_ high priced—as it was some years ago. It has been superseded by many other articles of utility or luxury. Still there are cards which make very amusing souvenirs. On them are downy chicks, nestling in old straw hats, others driving an egg shell tandem, rabbits and roosters performing the same acts, and long-legged ostriches gravely surveying the hidden possibilities of a basket of- china eggs—all these things, nicely mounted, have taken the place of the ordinary Haster card. Peanut Chinamen, egg-faced brownies and dolls, the latter gotten up in the most swagger of spring gowns, and hats fash- ioned of crepe paper, egg-faced religious in habits of brown or black paper, are all thought suggestive emblems of the time. After them in price, but certainly far ahead in welcome,are the exquisitely bound books, small etchings or water colors in ivory frames. With the prevailing Napoleon fad, no gift could be more suitable than a mini- ature of his period. These miniatures are found on pretty much everything in the box line—stamp boxes, patch boxes or bon- bonnieres. Conceits in Silver. In silver things, big and little, there is almost a limitless collection from which to choose. A maiden can present her young” man with a silver match box, or a gold one {f she likes, which has a hollow side all ready for her picture, and he can give her a silver or a gold heart six or seven Inches in circumference, which she will not con- ————S—=> Highest of all in Leavening Power.— Latest U.S. Gov’t Report Royal YarZS Baking Powder ABSOLUTELY PURE sider cumbersome, because it Js the very latest thing, and especially if it contains his and her pictures to be forever looking unutterable things at each other within its narrow compass. She will wear it tucked away somewhere among her laces and ribbons in the neighberhood of her heart, and attached to a slender chain around her neck. Then there are violet holders, boa clasps, ‘prayer book clasps and marker, book- marks and many other trifles that can be made useful. Prayer books and books of devotien come so beautifully bound nowa- days that they are joys within and with- cut. Both make most suitable gifts just now. So would the books of poems. Some of the brides of the next few weeks will Probably be the lucky ones to get the ivory and silver-bound prayer books, and they will be used for the service when the wedding day comes. If a further ecclesiastical touch is needed nothing could be prettier than a silver candlestick or lamp, some of the antique designs being preferable. They can be found now models of the lamps antedating the Christian era, as well as those which lighted the path for the faithful in the oldest of the Roman catacombs. ee THE NEW PARASOLS. Some of the Fancies That Fashion Has Decreed for This Season. About the new parasols! Have you seen any of them? The very newest ones, with works of aft on the covers, lace ruffles that cost a fortune, and handles that you can put away with your bric-a-brac and exhibit at a loan exhibition as “a bit of real Dresden?” Pretty? Why you want to touch them just as a baby puts its little pink finger tips on a downy new chicken. They remind you of sunset clouds and whipped cream; toad stools and snow drifts. You think “of banks whereon the wild thyme grows,” “daistes pied and vio- lets blue,” and all the rest of the children of fair Flora, for none of them are bloom- ing unseen, or wasting any sweetness on the desert air—at least not this season. Yet the same flower that smiles today from a white chiffon parasol, with an ivory handle, Cupid painted by a second Carot—perhaps Chrot didn’t paint Cupids, thoug h—tomorrow wil) be lying in the scrap bag, and the chiffon will be ripped off and something else will be in its place; something just as extravagant, and perhaps not as pretty. Marie Antoinette seems to be running things in the parasol line, as well as a lot ‘of other woman’s departments. The Marie Antoinette parasol may be of any shade of handsome silk that you like, so that it is bright. Up around the top next the ferrule it will be jabbed full of holes in a strictly geometrical design, and the holes will be carefully embroidered in open work. Then an inch from the edge will be an- other design just like it, only wider, and on the inside of the parasol will be strong- ly contrasting color, which shows through the open work. The lining is next the silken cover, and does not hide the frame, which is all of fine steel or brass, silk wound, so that the whole parasol is a symphony in color. They are all that way and are simply exquisite. Many of the parasols are trimmed with an overdress of chiffon, put on very full or in -countless ruffles, just as was worn last summer. A fancy for colors, with black, thin stuffs, is popular, and if you have a last season's parasol that is handsome, but soiled, just put a chiffon frock on it, ruffle it all around and put a big bow of ribbon close to the ferrule on one side, and the biggest bunch you can buy of your favorite flowers—arti- ficial—on the other, and you will be swell as anybody at half the cost. There is a perfect frenzy for sticking flowers on the outside of parasols, but you can rest assured that the absurd fashion will not last long into the summer. You can’t shut up a flower-bordered para- sol without ruining it. The sun takes the color out of the flow- ers, the dust spoils them, rain would play havoc with them, and they look bizarre. There is a fancy for silks in China and pompa- dour effects, which will go well with the exquisite Dresden painted handles, and the handsome rib- bons that are used for bows. Some are covered with heavy silk, richly brocaded in horizontal stripes with colored flowers, and some of the dainty white ones are actually hand painted. Lace is let into some of the more costly ones, in insertion, medallions and other designs, and the design will be outlined with a tiny frill of lace and have lace ruffles on the edge. Black and white para- sols will be popular as ever, but the com- bination is different this season. Black, with vandykes of white lace and insertion let in; black embroidered ,in white, and white treated with black in the same man- ner. Parasols of changeable silk are very swell, and when they have a wide border of one of the shades they are sweller still. Then, if you can afford a wide embroid- ered band above that yet and its richly colored flowers are set with jet or colored stones, you can wear ripped gloves and last season’s hat, for nobody will see any- thing but the “sunshade.” Black parasols are very giddy. Some satin ones are embroidered with jet, and yet others with iridescent effects in beads. 2 They are lined with bright silks. Better be careful how you select the color for lining if you don’t want to look a per- fect fright in the M\ sunshine. Some of the carriage shades are a sight. They are about the size of a saucer and made en- tirely of lace and silk tissue. They are gen- erally dark, but copy the styles of the larger ones. Mrs. Bissell got one of the open-work embroidered carriage shades the other day, and she remarked, as she laid down a ten-dollar bill for it, that all it was good for was to strain sunshine through. The Dresden china handle, with its love- ly painted design, is the favorite, and next to that comes natural wood. Gold and silver are not so common, but carved ivory, particularly if you can produce a hideous, grinning gnomé, is chic. You can have tortoise shell, and onyx is not so costly, but you must not fling it around. As to number, one for every gown is the limit. One couldn’t very well carry two at once. You can have them made to match your cotton frocks, if you like, or your wash silks and ginghams, but if you are downright sensible, you can get along with two and an umbrella. Lots of very well- gowned women get along with just the umbrella, having it of fine dark silk with a@ handsome handle. SSS Not the Kind. Jones—"I hear you vaccinated Russell Sage the other day. Did it take?” Bones—“No. I tried all my lancets, but couldn't make him bleed for a cent.” ——— WHITE HOUSE FLOWER POTS. Where They Come From and How They Are Made. “From 8,000 to 10,000 new pots are re- quired every year for use in the White House conservatories,” said Head Gardener Pfister to’a Star writer. “This represents the annual loss by detay and breakage. The average flower pot lasts three or four years. Of the number I have mentioned about one-third are little ‘thumb-pots,’ two inches in diameter. They are used for newly propagated plants of all sorts. In spring we require from 35,000 to 40,000 of these baby pots to hold the plants which we have freshly reared for the beds in the grounds of the Executive Mansion. “Flower pots are made everywhere, you might say. Perhaps the greatest quantities of them are now manufactured in Boston ard Philadelphia, from which cities im- mense numbers of them are shipped to other points. Flower pots are of two kinds: —machine-made and hand-made. The lat- ter, turned out by the potter's wheel, are the most durable and most expensive. Un- til recently there were no standard sizes in Pots, but about four years ago the Society of American Florists adopted regulations on the subject; so that pot-makers are now obliged to conform exactly to these rules, and a pot made in Boston of a given size is precisely lke a-pot of the same size made in any other city. Formerly every potter had his own standards of size, and a 3%-inch pot of one manufacturer might be equal in capacity to a 4-iNch pot of an- other make. “The new standards require that a 2-inch pot shall be exactly two inches deep and two inches wide at the top. In all sizes of flower pots the depth and diameter at the top must be equal. The regutations cover even the thickness of the rims. Florists de- mand that their pots shall have rims, in order that they may be lifted and moved about more easily. Pots without rims are much more apt to slip from the hand, and thus the important item of breakage is in- creased. Another point worth mentioning is that pots of the same size may be ar- ranged with greater regularity, and, ac- cordingly, with mere convenience on the benches. They look better so, too. “The small pots, made in molds, from two to four inches, cost from $3 to $8.50 per 1,000. Hand-made pots of larger sizes, from five inches to. sixteen inches, cost all the way from $13 per 1,000 to $55 per 100. The big 16-inch pots, which cost 55 cents apiece, are for large palms and other big plants. Some very fine pots are made in the neigh- borhood of Washington. At Terra Cotta rig — or beentthe clay, which fur- ish_ mate! not only for but for first-rate sewer pipes.” ty eae —.___. SEASON FOR SEEDS. And Also for the Householder to Be on His Guard. At this happy season of the vear, whert the bulbs that have lain hidden through the winter under ground, are putting forth their gorgeous blossoms, enterprising agents are going about with samples of seeds and“prefusely illustrate] catalogues descriptive of flowering plants and vege- tables from the land of Bro>dignag. The getting up of these catalogues is quite an important business. One big establishment in the nerth is entirely devoted to printing lithographs for them. As for the agents, they sometimes have tricks that are sharp and ways that are vain, so thet the rural or suburban householder will do well to be on_his guard. For example, they offer, for twenty-five or fifty cents, what might be called prize packages of seeds. These include a num~ ber of varieties of flower and vegetable seeds, being made up on pretty much the same plan as the packets of postage stamps for youthful collectors. For a quarter of a collar you may get quite an assortment—cabbage, turnip, carrot, and bean, with small quantities of sweet alyssum, pansy, sweet pea and may be a dozen others. Unfortunately, some seeds- men—it is not meant that the practice is general—work off old stock in this fashion. The seeds thus purchased are apt to be Stale, so that they never come up. One of the most common frauds of this kind is the advertising of old varieties of vegetables, etc., as novelties. But a much more serious and outrageous swindle is the “killing” of seeds, as it is technically call- ed. It is a fact that seeds of many kinds look much alike. For instance, it is very difficult even for an expert to distinguish cabbage seeds from those of the wild mus- tard. Both are dark brown, spherical and about the same size. The dishonest seeds- man will take a quantity of wild mustard seeds and subject them to neat until the vitality of their germs is destroyed; then he will mix them with good cabbage seeds. People buy the stuff in good faith and plant it; the cabbage seeds come up all right, while, as a matter of course, the dead mus- tard seeds show no further sign. It should be understood that wild mustard is a very bad ond exceedingly common weed. In California and in other parts of the west great tracts are covered with it. At the proper season its seeds may be gathered easily and at small expense. The “killing” business is practiced with many other kinds of seeds, and is difficult of de- tection. One result of the recent establishment of a seed laboratory by the Department of Agriculture has been the discovery that the seeds given away by Uncle Sam every year are by no means up to the proper stand- ards. Many of them have been found to be largely adulterated. For example, a high-priced grass seed, worth $65 per 100 pounas, proved to have a considerable mixture of another kind of grass seed valued at only $16 per 100 pounds. Nobody but an expert could detect the fraud, the two sorts of sceds beirg much alike. Here- after satisfactory precautions will be taken against the purchase by the government of adulterated seeds. This can be accomplish- ed very eesily, inasmuch as the quality of the stuff offered maysbe readily determined by examination in the laboratory. —--— DECEIVED BY A DUDE. How a $3,500,000 Bid by an Unknown Man Was Taken Seriously. From the Cincinnat! Commercial Gazette. Samuel P. Schuckers is dead at Wooster, Ohio, aged fifty-eight years. He was a brother of J. W. Schuckers, private secre- tary of Salmon P. Chase, and brother-in- ‘law of John H. Obery, ex-civil service commissioner. An interesting incident is recalled by Schuckers’ death which has never found its way in the newspapers. The incident occurred a number of years ago, and during the time of the sale of the Lake Shore railroad at Cleveland, Ohio, it happened that Schuckers and John Mc- Sweeney, the great criminal lawyer, met at the sale. McSweeney had but a short time before made a great hit by his pollti- cal speeches at Cleveland and Philadelphia, and was attracting attention all over the country. At this particular time he w: trying a case at Cleveland. Young Schuck- ers was in these days a veritable dude and very sprucy. He went to Cleveland to have a time, as he always left Wooster to celebrate, and was having a good glorious time on this particular occasion. He was small and wiry in stature and always carried a silk umbrella. It happened that he met Me- Sweeney in the rotunda just as he haa finished an argument, and while the sale of the Lake Shore railroad was going on. They stopped for a moment at the edge of the excited crowd bidding in the road. There were a number of syndicates repre- sented—foreign, Vanderbilts, Goulds and ethers. The bidding had reached $%,100,000, In a spirit of devilishness young Schuck- ers bid $3,500,000. In a moment a rush was made toward the new bid demand was made to know what syndicate he represented. His only reply w with a wave of his silk umbrella, “( from me.” The excited representativi the other syndicates asked for a recess, which was granted, and in twenty minutes they came back, when the bid was r to $4,000,000 and sold. Mr. Schuckers’ sprucy appearance and being in company with the great criminal lawyer had led them to believe he repre- sented some secret syndicate, who wer@ trying to gain possession of the valuabl¢ railroad property.