Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1891 — The Formal “Call." [ARTICLE]

The Formal “Call."

Whatever may betide, men have good wane to aejoice that they bear no part fat that xrowning bor#r of all bores known aa the "formal call.” That is a feminine institution. It is an invention •f the sex, and the sex groans under ite voke. Man smokes his Durham in Deatiflo peace, while the wife an 4 daughters pay tribute to the formal ealL He hears the sotto voee prayer that parties will be out, and that the matter can be dispatched with a card. He quietly notes the sigh of relief when the exhausted women return after hours of social distress. He observes the tax of dress incident to the affair, the bad temper it invokes, and the hypocrisy and total alienee of any equivalent in the way of -pleasure fo* Ml this slavish adherence to custom, and then dimly realizes the miraculous felicity of his own escape from such thralldom, and it maybe takes comfort in the thought that the whole business falls totally on those who have made Vm pay the piper for countless other freaks and whims of fashion and eaprioe. The elasticity of conscience with which the gentle creatures endeavor to mitigate the infliction of the formal call by convenient fibs, furnishes the masculine monster some amusing feed for study, and it may be doubted Whether he would budge an inch to Polish the formal call. It is diamond eat diamond; women annoying women. In suoh a transacts the wise man holds aloof and lets tho dainty belligerents masquerading as friends manage the hollow and artificial show M suits themselves. It is not often Nut he has an opportunity of keeping apt of a game in which women array meir wits against one another instead t against the common tyrant, man. Is at liberV to be judiciously silent and hear the fair prattlers discuss each etfrsr in a sty la utterly unlike the fancy wietuxes of novelits and poets, and if ■e deesnt git some wholesome ©alight* •UMst he is hopelessly stupid,— PUt+ »W»8 ot>ro*Uek - T*laq**X> h.