Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1884 — Flemish Social Life. [ARTICLE]

Flemish Social Life.

Our visit to this seaport of Belgium was more socially successful than falls to the lot of summer travelers. Flemish life differs from the German in that it is more permeated with French customs. Women of the higher classes have a certain cldc which gives them a presence, a more definite personality than falls to the fate of their well-born German sisters. They converse more spiritedly, and do not open their eyes and look confounded if a woman smokes a cigarptts in their presence, as sometimes happens when a Russian or Moldavian countess enters their social world. At the Cercle d’Harmonie garden’ concerts, to which one is admitted by card of invitation from the members, they are not seen, drinking beer at the furious rate German hausfrauen swallow that berverage in Munich and Vienna. They go to promenade in the pretty, shadowy pathways, and show their pretty Parisian toilets in the “rond point,” where the orchestra kiosk stands. They receive gracefully at their private receptions, converse intelligently, and are graceful, gay, and womanly. Gentlemen prefer their own society—they belong to the heavy artillery order of humanity—and it takes a Clydesdale team of brain power to move them; but they can be moved to love or anger with equal ferocity, so that, on the whole, it is best to leave them alone and admire their tall forms and fascinating mustaches at a distance.—, Cologne, Germany, Cor. San Francisco Chronicle.