Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub
[merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic]
[graphic]
[graphic]

white cotton or an expensive combination of satin and lace. Whatever it is, it should be clean and unrumpled, and to preserve these qualities it must be removed every night, neatly folded, and laid aside. Added warmth may be furnished by the misnamed comfortable, or by a duvet or afghan, laid folded across the foot of the bed in the daytime and drawn up at night. Cheap blankets of mixed cotton and wool, or the simple coverlets made of cream or colored cheese-cloths, filled with batting and tufted with worsted in the style of the little duvets used for babies, are preferable to the heavy chintz quilts, whose weight alone is almost enough to produce nightmare.

Tastes differ as to the style of counterpane to be used. The white is always neat, and is in reality the most serviceable, because it may be made to look as good as new by its passage through the hands of the laundress. Indeed, Marseilles spreads, if properly done up, improve with repeated washings. They lose thus that stiffness which shows a misfold nearly as plainly as would a sheet of paper, and renders it all but impossible to draw them smoothly and evenly across the bed. The counterpane should never be spread up over the bolster, but turned back' neatly just below this, and the upper sheet folded back over it. By this method the spread may be taken off at night, and the top of the sheet left undisturbed to protect the sleeper's face from contact with the unpleasant woolliness of the blankets. Nor should the lower sheet serve as an excuse for dispensing with a bolster-slip. This is as necessary to comfort as are pillow-slips, and should never be omitted.

In old Virginia a "bed-stick" was considered an essential. A little longer than the couch was wide, it was used to smooth up the coverings from the foot to the head. A broomstick answers the purpose tolerably, and aids in producing a trimness of finish otherwise hard to attain.

On the question of shams there are varying opinions. They are ornamental, but troublesome, and only serve, so say some, to conceal untidiness. Many house-keepers prefer to keep two pairs of pillow-cases and two bolster-slips in use, employing one set for day and the other for night, while other women have day pillows and night pillows, either laying the latter on the foot of the bed in the daytime, or keeping them out of sight in a closet. If shams are used, however, the sheet sham is as valuable as those for the pillows, concealing the top of the sheet when it has become tumbled. The sheets, by-the-way, should be long enough to be drawn up over the shoulders of the occupant of the bed. Cause for acute discomfort is found in short sheets that cannot be pulled up to the chin without uncovering the feet. Sheets should be of a length that will permit of their being tucked in well at the foot of the bed, and yet allow enough to turn back six inches at the top over the blankets.

The rest of the chamber should be submitted to the same close attention that has been bestowed upon the bed. The wash-stand requires especial care. The pitchers must be washed and wiped out every morning to prevent an accumulation of sediment and consequent stain. The bowl must be scrubbed clean of the grease that gathers on the inside of it, and the soap-dish washed-the latter a rare action among house-maids. The receptacles for slops should be scalded out with boiling water and washing soda or household ammonia, and set in the sun uncovered for an hour or two. The top of the wash-stand should be spread with a cloth, towel, or bamboo mat. The towels, which should have been left opened out until dry by those who used them, should be folded neatly and hung in their places on the rack.

A dust-pan and brush or a carpet-sweeper will be required nearly every morning in a sleepingroom. The dust must be brushed from the corners, and the rugs shaken from the window. If a thorough sweeping is required, all articles that cannot be carried from the room should be protected by cheese-cloth sweeping sheets. In dusting, a cheese-cloth duster should be used, and all bric-a-brac and furniture carefully wiped. Loose hairs, scraps of paper, etc., should be removed from the bureau, and the cover of this shaken and replaced. No pieces of clothing should be left lying about the room.

Each chamber closet should have a shoe-bag hung on the inside of the door. Nothing detracts more from the tidiness of a room than the sight of boots and slippers scattered about the floor. By the bureau or in the closet should hang a small laundry-bag for soiled handkerchiefs, collars, and cuffs. Little brass screw-hooks fastened here and there for whisk-broom, catch-all, hand-glass, button-hook, and other toilette implements that can be hung up out of the way will also prove almost indispensable. Similar hooks, by the wash-stand will hold sponges, sponge-bags, and wash-cloths.

If there are draperies in a bedroom they should be well shaken each morning while the windows are open, to rid them of possible lurking disease germs. When the room is swept, it is well to unhook the curtains from the rings and give then an air and sun bath of half an

[blocks in formation]

CORD AND PICOT STRIPES.

Fancy woollens combined with plain twilled wools make up the greater part of the French importations, two and a half to three yards of fancy goods of single width being added to eight yards of the plain goods, which is double width; the figured stuff represents a lower skirt disclosed almost to the belt in one or two places by the very long drapery of the plain fabric, and is also used for decorating the plain bodice. Cord stripes, picot stripes, and velvet stripes, with others like tufting and in loops, are clustered on smooth grounds of the stylish Gobelin blue, clear dark green, and old-rose wools. In the new reds no garnet and no cardinal tints are seen, but there is great variety in the blood red shades, and in the vieux rose, the dahlia, and the mahogany tints, which French modistes assert can be worn equally well by blondes and brunettes.

VELVET STRIPES, FIGURES, PLAIDS, ETC.

The Jacquard looms make large flowered velvet stripes on satin and wool grounds for combining with plain twills in the way just noted. Lily, rose, and leaf designs form the stylish stripes, while for separate figures of velvet there are great moons, blocks, pastilles, diamonds, and almond shapes distributed about on surfaces of the same color. The Pompadour designs of flowerets and garlands of natural colors sunken in velvet pile are imported for combining with plain stuffs. Plain stripes of velvet are seen in various widths alternating with wool stripes of the same color and of contrasting colors. Perhaps the handsomest of all the contrasting fabrics are the velours écossais, or large plaids of velvet with twilled silk bars of contrasting colors on dark wool grounds. Some of these plaids are so large that the inside blocks of wool are six inches square. These come in monotone, or in many colors of the richest hues, or in two prettily contrasting colors, such as blue with brown, red with green, gray with blue, etc. An entire skirt of the plaid will be worn with a polonaise of plain twilled wool, or with pointed draperies and basque of wool.

VELOURS SOUTACHE.

Designs like those of soutache braiding are woven in raised uncut velvet figures all over wool surfaces; these are in two tones of one color, or in black on any colored ground. This fabric is used for bodices to wear with different skirts, also for the entire lower skirt with a plain overskirt, and for making wraps. The old-fashioned garments that are braided all over are to be copied this season both in ladies' cloths and in cash

meres.

FRENCH DRESSES FOR AUTUMN.

There are no marked changes seen in the earliest importations of French dresses for autumn; they retain the long-waisted bodices, long full draperies, and plain lower skirt, all novel features being in the small details of drapery and trimming. Another attempt will be made to popularize the polonaises which were adopted by large women last season. Wool costumes will be de rigueur for the street, not only in plain tailor gowns, but in the more fanciful wool fabrics described above, with velvet stripes, plaid velvet, and soutache woven designs. Repped silks and moirés, both plain and striped, will be used for entire dresses and in combination with velvet.

NEW BASQUES.

The new basques are noticeable for their elaborate front trimmings, many of them being draped ful full from the shoulders down, even though made of heavy cloth or other thick fabric. The full surplice effect is used even when there is a vest or plastron, and the Greek drapery coming from the right shoulder to the left side of the waist is seen on supple woollens, on silks, and on velvets. It is no unusual thing to see cloth or camel'sel's hair basques with three large pleats on each shoulder tapering to the merest edge of folds at the waist line, with the space filled in with a gathered or pleated silk vest, or with one of velvet or plush, quite, smooth, but richly embroidered or decorated with passementerie. Shirred cloth fronts are also made with clusters of gathers at the top and at the waist line, yet are not clumsy, as they are well held in shape by points and a V-shaped vest of steel or silver cord passementerie; there are also yoke fronts of the hea viest velvet with the wool gathered on the lower edge. Some pretty bodices without vests are

each edge of the fronts. This is prettily shown on a brown, red, and blue mixed Cheviot over a brown velvet band, with brown buttons and soutache; the postilion back has buttons and holes for its trimming, and the cuffs of the coat sleeves have ten or twelve buttons in pairs up the outer seam. The back of basques is finished by each of the four forms being doubled below the waist line, shaped into leaf points, faced with a contrasting material, and edged with braid. In many dresses the back drapery of the skirt is hooked up on the middle forms of the basque, which slopes out gradually over the tournure. The pointed girdles that trim the front sometimes extend only to the darts, but are most becoming when reaching back to the under-arm seams. Passementerie ornaments form this girdle on rich dresses, while others are merely of the velvet used in combination, or of the striped fabric seen in the skirt. Coat sleeves of easy-fitting shape, with very simple cuffs, are on dresses of thick stuffs. Small round crocheted and basketwoven buttons fasten French dresses, with sometimes buttons of much larger size set about for ornament only, or perhaps to hold a single revers, or to define the waist.

SKIRTS AND DRAPERIES.

Plain lower skirts bordered with trimming or mounted quite full on a gored foundation, giving made of figured stuffs in stripes or bars are the effect of a full round gathered skirt wherever disclosed by the drapery. The border is placed directly at the foot, and may extend in one or two rows up one side or up both sides to the belt; this border is of velvet, or else of wide galloon or of open soutache braiding, and sometimes of both velvet and soutache. When silk or moiré is used

for the lower skirt it may be simply bordered with velvet, or it may have pleats the whole length of the parts not covered by drapery. At present the draperies most seen are very long in front and back, touching the bottom of the dress there, and are either omitted altogether across the sides, or else are exceedingly short on the hips. The long back draperies are nearly straight, but are laid in deeply folded pleats, and are made bouffant by cushions and steels like those now worn. Many foundation skirts have two steels quite near together crossing the back just below the belt (perhaps four or five inches below it), and this gives an ample tournure without using a hair-cushion bustle; three other steels are then placed across further down the back breadths. The gores of the foundation skirt are not changed in shape. Foot-pleatings are little used on heavy skirts, and if used must not be visible.

POLONAISES AND DEMI-POLONAISES.

-The latest person to be interviewed on the war is Fighting JOE HOOKER'S cook. HookER and KEARNY were bosom-friends, and the only time his cook ever saw HOOKER shed a tear was when KEARNY was killed. He sat down and cried like a baby. LINCOLN was the greatest man who ever visited HOOKER's tent. He was always telling stories and jolly. He invited the cook to the White House, and took him around and introduced him to his wife, "just as if he had been some great man."

-A Boston stable-man by the name of BEAN and his sister have fallen heir to $10,000,000. If these Boston BEANS had not been found, the money would have been divided among the negro servants of the millionaire who left it.

-Professor ARTHUR SEYMOUR, Assistant-Professor of Botany at Harvard University, is, as are so many savants, an absent-minded man. While gathering specimens near Hartford, Connecticut, a few days ago, he heard the whistle of a train he wanted to take, and dropping his basket of specimens, and not stopping to pick up his hat that he had thrown down in a moment of enthusiasm, he started on a dead run for the station. Over the fields and through the village streets he ran, while pedestrians cleared the way for him, and corner loafers gave him a wide berth. Just at this time there was a reward of fifty dollars out for the capture of an escaped lunatie, and one villager bolder than the rest gave chase, and captured Professor SEYMOUR, who only after much explanation was set free.

-Miss MARY ANDERSON is coming home for a season after she has played her engagement at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Her step-father denies all stories of her approaching marriage, and says also that there is no truth in the report that she intends to make her home in England. It is said by those who know her best that Miss ANDERSON is constantly striving to improve as an actress, and that she is always studying, and ever ready to take a hint.

-Camden, New Jersey, is the Gretna Green of Pennsylvania, and the Rev. JOHN T DOBBINS is the clergyman with the largest patronage. For two years Dr. DOBBINS has averaged over 175 weddings a month, and his fees since January, 1886, have amounted to $25,000; so it is said.

-CARNEGIE, PHIPPS, & Co., of the famous Pittsburgh iron-works, will not allow any employés of their mills to own liquor saloons. Other mills are following this example. Now if they could only keep their employés from patronizing saloons, they would be doing a good wor

[graphic]
[graphic]

work indeed.

-The Countess CASA MIRANDA, CHRISTINE NILSSON's mother-in-law, is said to be one hundred years old. She was the governess of Queen MERCEDES and of the Countess of Paris. Her

son, who married Madame NILSSON, has been desc described as the handsomest man in Spain. Like the average Spaniard, Count CASA MIRANDA is of dark complexion, has a mass of black hair, a grizzled mustache, and wears spectacles.

-The Duke of Westminster is brother-in law to his own daughter, his second wife's brother having married his daughter. The present Duchess is rather pretty, small, and neither dark nor fair, but her picture at Grosvenor House, painted by MILLAIS, is flattered to a degree that will give posterity a very favorable notion of her beauty.

-CORNELIUS VANDERBILT Works harder than most very poor men. He is what might be called the head of finance of the VANDERBILT system, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Central and Harlem, and deep in responsibility on the other lines. He is forty years old, and worth about $75,000,000: When he was a boy his father got him a clerkship in the Shoe and Leather Bank. He refused a tour of Europe then because it would take him from his desk, and be is just as assiduous now-so much so that his friends fear he is hurting himself.

-An accomplished amateur photographer has a set of rough Manila albums, each one devoted to one of his children. The first page shows the baby a day old, and not a month passes without picture of that child or some of its surroundings-the nursery, the house, its books, and playthings. On some pages are family groups in which the child figures. Beneath each picture is written the date, and the album will constitute a curious record for the future.

-CARL ROSA, in a private letter to a friend in New York, has expressed his willingness to give a season of English opera in the United States if a committee is formed to guarantee his expeuses. There are few managers who would not visit us on the same terins.

-The Empress of Austria, who is said to be the finest lady rider in Europe, is a very tall woman with a remarkably small waist. At a little distance, owing to her case of carriage and springy gait, she might be taken for a young woman. A closer inspection shows the lines in her face. Her dark brown hair is usually done up in tight braids at the back. Her complexion, from constant exposure, is as brown as that of

Polonaises of cloth over full skirts of velvet, or of striped silk and velvet, or else of lighter cloth bordered with velvet, are shown from various French modistes. These polonaises outline the long waist severely, with all fulness of the skirt added very far below the hips. Sometimes the front of the waist is shirred next a vest, while in other designs it is lapped far to the left side. In some instances the drapery touches the foot in front and back, and is scarcely longer than a basque on the sides, while other polonaises have a short panier on the left hip, and a long apron front with straight pleats on the right side. This one-sided drapery is prettily seen in a brown cloth polonaise which discloses nearly the whole cloth polonaise which discloses nearly the whole visit left side of its skirt of wide brown velvet stripes alternating with steel-colored Bengaline stripes. The front of the polonaise has points and a vest of steel galloon holding its shirrings in place. The striped skirt is made of five straight breadths of the single-width material, simply hemmed and mounted on a foundation skirt. Demi-polonaises have basque fronts and sides, with the polonaise drapery confined to the middle forms of the back, where it falls over a cushion attached to the pointed ends of these forms, and consists of four straight gathered breadths of moiré of single width, or of two breadths of cloth of double fold; the skirt for such an over-dress is perfectly plain in front and on the sides. An illustration of this model is of Gobelin blue moiré antique with paler blue satin stripes; the basque front is shirred to the shoulder seams and folded over the chest in three pleats graduated to the merest line at the pointed waist; the V-shaped space at the top is filled in with velvet, and there is a velvet girdle pointed below; the high collar and narrow cuffs are of velvet. A wide panel of velvet is down the front of the skirt, a breadth of moiré is each side of this panel, and other panels of velvet are next this moiré breadth; the back of the polonaise then drapes the remainder of

[graphic]

the skirt.

For information received thanks are due Messrs. ARNOLD, CONSTABLE, & Co.; LORD & TAYLOR; LE BOUTILLIER BROTHERS; and STERN BROTHERS.

a sailor.

-Mr. E. BERRY WALL, who bears the distinguishing title of "King of the Dudes," was ordered off the floor of the ballroom of the Grand Union Mr.

Hotel, Saratoga, recently, because the door-keep

er insisted that he was not in full dress. WALL Wore the tailless dress-coat so popular in England for summer wear, but which was new to the attendant, who regarded it as little more than a waiter's jacket, and insisted upon the claw-hammer of tradition.

-REBECCA BEATH, a Detroit girl of fifteen years of age, deserves great praise for heroic conduct. She was sailing on the lake with her parents and three of her brothers and sisters, a few days ago, when a squall struck the boat and capsized it. REBECCA was the only one who did not lose her presence of mind. She swam about the boat, and first assisted her mother to a hold on the keel; then she helped the children to a place of safety, and by this time the mother had slipped from the boat and sunk. dived for her and brought her up. A boat came to their rescue, but it was overloaded, and to make room for the others, REBECCA jumped out and swam to the upturned boat, saying: "Come back for me. I am all right."

[graphic]
[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[graphic][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

course there is is carried on between the factories on land and the hulks in the river by means of row-boats. Under such circumstances life becomes a burden, and there is also the constant dan

BETWEEN the foot of the towering Cameroons Mold in 13th, luxuriant, but do by forest ble det of the Cameroons Mountains; ger of the fever, which no one escapes.

and the third degree of north latitude, six rivers of considerable volume pour their waters into the delta of the Cameroons. The Cameroons River that gives its name to the bay is not larger than its sister streams, but surpasses them all in importance as the great waterway of the district and the centre of the Cameroons trade. Three so-called towns-King Acqua's Town, King Bell's Town, and Dido Town-lie on its banks, where its breadth is about 1400 yards from shore to shore. The scenery as it presents itself to the traveller who has reached these trading stations is not espe

mangoes, oil-palms, cocoa-palms, and the like, spring up from the wide-stretching thickets of underwood, which are chiefly formed of prickly shrubs. Much of the land is cultivated, for the population is large; and the natives raise crops of bananas, yams, mandioc, and varieties of pumpkins, and herds of goats, pigs, and a small breed of cows that give little or no milk. To the traders and the missionaries, the only white men who reside permanently here, life is monotonous, and as limited as life on board ship; horses are unknown, and walking impossible, and what little social inter

In 1884 the German government assumed the protectorate of the whole Cameroons country between the French colony of Gaboon and the British Oil River territory-a proceeding which caused considerable annoyance to the English government, as the natives had for the previous five years been asking for English protection, to which petition Lord GRANVILLE had neglected to return an answer, until the time when, the German protectorate being an accomplished fact, England realized that her negligence had cost her a colony.

« IndietroContinua »