Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1893 — FOR THE FAIR SEX. [ARTICLE]

FOR THE FAIR SEX.

DRESSES FOR AUTUMN. Many handsome dress models for auumn wear show the bodice laced, hooked, or buttoned down the back—a most becoming fashion on a graceful figure, and a commendable one for certain gowns if one has a maid or a friend always available, but if chance services have to be depended upon, this graceful style must be sacrificed, for be the arms ever so long and patience like Job’s, one will never succeed in buttoning the gown all the way down the back. —[St. Louis liepublic. A MARKETING COSTUME. A neat costume for marketing may be composed of the following: A dress made from some quiet wash-silk or sateen, with a bell skirt and plain waist—one or two narrow rutiles may ornament the skirt, while the waist may be cut low at the neck, so that a shirt front can be worn with it. A sailor hat with a band of ribbon around it, a pair of lisle-thread gloves, tan shoes and a silk umbrella. If your marketing dress is made of flannel or cloth have several rows of machine stitching around the bottom as a finish. —[New York World. HOW TO LOOK COOL SUDDENLY. If you come in after a long round of shopping and receive a sudden summons to the parlor to meet some unexpected guest, do not be dismayed at the crimson face which meets your eye as you stand before your dressing tabic mirror. Likewise do not seek a remedy in the bath room. Many women think the only way to cool off is to bathe the face lavishly in cool water. This is a great mistake, and with a thin skin will only intensify the color, and the last estate of this woman shall be worse than the first. Dash the water ou throat and neck as freely as you choose, particularly at the back of the neck, but if the face is bathed at all let it be done sparingly, then sponge it with Florida water and lastly apply a generous coating of powder. You will look ghastly, but let the powder remain while you add the few necessary touches to your toilet. Thea, just as you are to descend to the parlor, dust off all superfluous powder lightly, and you will welcome your guest fresh and cool, not only in appearance, but in reality.— [Washington Star.

TRAINED WOMEN COOKS. The heavy part of domestic labor will after a time be done by machinery and by professional cleaners and scrubbers who go from house to house, but there will always be demand for trained women cooks. There is something fine and aesthetic in the preparation of dainty food. The labor is not severe, and the mixing and cooking of choice and healthful foods, such as civilized beings ought to eat, require a degree of intellectual power not less than is demanded to write a good poem. If not exactly an intellectual occupation, high class cooking comes so near it that it must be considered fully as honorable as the profession of trained nurse. By all means women with a taste that way should train themselves for skilled cooks. Then, with good grammar, courteous manners, spotless white nprons and caps, they could command their own price and an honorable position socially. What the trained nurse has accomplished for herself along this line the trained woman cook can do for herself.—[St. Louis Star-Say-ings.

THE USEFUL HAIRPIN. The use of the hairpin is as great a mystery to the average man as the spread of the cholera is to the scientist, despite the fact that nearly every man has at some period of his existence been designated as a “hairpin” of some kind or other by one of his irate fellows, says the Cincinnati Enquirer. For the benefit of these, as well as the gentler sex, which uses it so extensively, but which is generally unaware of the means or manner of its manufacture, we append a few statistics. Hairpins are made by automatic and very complicated machines. The coiled wire is put upon drums and becomes straightened as it feeds itself to the machine. It passes along until it reaches two cutters, which point the end at the same time they cut it the length required. This piece of wire then slips along an iron plate un..l it reaches a slot, through which it is pressed into regular shape. The hairpins are then put into a pan and japanned, after which they are heated in an oven with a temperature of from 300 to 400 degrees. There are but four American factories. The largest are in Birmingham and Waterbury, Conn., the others are in Philadelphia and Brooklyn. Five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of hairpins are annually imported from England, France and Germany. Judging by the immense amount of money thus expended it would appear that the headgear of a large portion of our feminine population is somewhat extraneous.