THE JAPANESE HOST EN I'KHTAIXIKXIOK (HUSH !)E. VKLOPKI) IN IO A I- INK AIM'. The C.rncrs nml t-'ormalltir of n Ceremonious Dinner (;lrl Who licgullr the Time The O.I.I Menu. TV CEREMONIOUS Japanese dinner is ft tiresome ex V I'erienco for an American, (i partisnlnrly if he bo in the labit of doing things in i hurry and is given to stiff joints nml cmbon point, writes W. E. Curtis iu the Chi cago llccord. But the novelty is worth the test of endurance, and if it happens to bo in the homo of a rich man, where ono ciin enjoy to the lull measure the hospitality ' that is re garded an one of the tine arts as well as one of the cardinal virtues, with all the graces and formalities of oriental etiquette, it will never be forgotten. Buddhism has left its impression upon the diet as well as the manners of tho Japanese. The strict tenets of the church forbid the taking of life, and, therefore, animal fool was prac tically abandoned in Japan more than 1000 year ego. Nine-teuths of the .people live on vegetables and dried fish tho latter being a concession to WAITING-MAIDS MAKING human frailty. Chickens are used to some extent, And a pious fraud is practiced in calling the deer a "mountain whale." When you nee the sign "Yamakujira" written over a market or ating house it means that they have venison for sale there nnder the title I have given, but 'it is so ex pensive that only tho rich can indulge in that soTt of Bin. Meat eating is on the increase, however, and markets for the vale of beef, pork and mutton are found in the neighborhood of all the fashionable districts. ' There ore three or four eel houses in Tokyo that are as popular for din ing as Kinsley's in Chicago or Del monico'sin New York, and the Golden Koi has been made famous by Edwin Arnold. When yon enter that or any other eel he use you are led to a tank full of squirming reptiles and asked to sehct your victims. Tho larger eels are rank and eoarse and greasy and the American seldom tries them but once. The little fellows, how over, are delicious, particularly when about five inches long and broiled on a bamboo skewer like white bait. You can see them cooked if yon like, for true to their habit of having every thing the reverse of what it is with us, the Japanese restaurants plaoe their kitohon in the front part of the house adjoining the entrance and their dining-rooms somewhere at the end of a eeries of corridors in the rear. The tea gardens in Japan are all alike, and they aie all lovely, but the houses would be more comfortable if one could have tables and chain and knives and forks instead of being com pelled to sit on a mat in his stocking EATING THEIR feet and endeavor to eat with chop ticks. Everything is served to you on little lacqurred trays on the floor, and the food is usually in bowla or tiny cups which you can lift to your mouth if you like and shovel in the food as most of us have to do, because the use of ohopstioks is an acquired art, and very few foreigners oan ever do it gracefully. While you are eating there are al ways two or three nesans or geisha girls to entertain you. None of them can talk English, but at the tea houses usually frequented by foreigners a few useful worda have been acquired, and, as the girls are very quick of per ception, it is only neoessary to give them one-quarter of an idea and tbey will supply the other three-quarters with their native wit. No matter what Sir Edwin Arnold and other sentimen tal writers on Japan may say, these Japanese girls are not pretty. Their figures are shapeless, tbeir featurea are fiat, their oomplexions are muddy, teeth are bad, and if they wore mod rn garments one would never look at them a second time. They eannot com pare in looks with the shop girls of Chicago and New York, and the wait resses in our country hotels will aver age quite as well 'for beauty. But their kiminos are of the dnintest shades and combination of color, their obis aro of tho richest brocades, and their hair isamarvol in its arrange ment. All this makes them interest ing, and they have pretty, graceful manners. The girls receive no regular wages, but are a sort of extra tbit is served with every order and aro paid by tho customer and not by the house. Tho habitues of particular restaurants know them by name and order their geishas as they order their dinner. If no special favorites are called for thoy take tbeir turn as customers come in, always going in pairs. While yon are eating they sit around on the floor and make themselves merry, repeating the latest gossip, reciting little poems, telling anecdotes ami jokes and mak ing themselves as entertaining as pos sible. If you WHnt them to sing or play tho eamincn thoy will do so, but their musical accomplishments are not appreciated by foreigners, who sel dom ask them to sing twice. A Jap aueso song is a recitative in a minor key pitched very high and and inter spersed with little squeals and screeches. lthas no melody or har mony, and one finis it difficult to de- THEIR VERY BEST I)OW. tect any rhythm. The wife of a Jnpaneso gentloman never presides at his table except when he has lady guests, but she us ually makes her appearance when the servants bring in the tea and sweet meats that always precede a dinner. She gives you a graceful greeting and then retires to reappear as yon are saying your "sayonaras," which is the Japanese for "good-by." Thin silken cushions are scattered aronnd upon the floor, and the gnests are arranged in the ordor of their rank or seniority, which is a matter of great importance among so ceremoni ous a people as the Japauese. Little tables about six inohes high, such as yon see piled up like pyramids in the bric-a-brao stores in Araerioa, are brought in and placed before you. Then barefooted nesans, or waiting maids, lookiug fresh and eool and graoeful in their soft-tinted kiminos, bring trays of laquer upon which are several covered bowls. Before they plaoe the trays upon the little tables they leave them on the floor for a mo ment while they niake their very best bow. Bowing with us is a lost art. Our lumbar vertebra) has never been lim bered up to a degree sufficient for us to move more than the head and per haps the shoulder, but the Japanese bow begins with the hips, and when you meet a gentleman or a lady they usually show you the baok of their neck several times before they com mence conversation, plaoing the hands upon the knees and turning the body into a right angles. Servants drop upon their knees, plaoe their bands BUFPER AT HOME. upon the matting and touch the fore bead upon the floor. This oeremony is repeated with the greatest gravity whenever they bring you a dish or take one away, and they are trained from childhood. A little boy or girl of three or foul years will make as dignified a bow as the most renowned instructor in deoorum, and a Japanese housekeeper is a great deal more par tioalar about the dress and manners of her aervant than we are. When you are in Japan you have to do as the Japanese do, and you oan find ont their ways easily by waton ing. Your host ia thoughtful and ob serving, and tries to put you at your ease aud help you along by dropping little bints as to the manner of using your obop-atioki and the customary way of doing toil and that. Home times at dinner they give you hand omely osrvei ivory chop-sticks that are heirlooms, a nd may have been in the family for generations, but it is leu ostentatious to furnish little strips of sweet, white wood highly polished and split apart for only half their - length to show that they had never been nsed. No well-ordered family ever uses the same chop-sticks tho sec ond time. The ozon or tables, tho Incqucr trays, the bowls and cups in which your food is served nre all of the most exquisite workmanship nn.l artistic designs. You seldom see a plato or a saucer nt a Japanese dinner. Those aro made exclusively for the foreign trade, but the little bonis and cups in which your food and sake are served are works of art. Tho host sets an example by remov ing the covers from tho bowls upon his tray ami, imitating him, yon II nd an assortment of food that is entirely new and often trying to your palato. Thero is no use of a Unifo, for every thing is eooked in little morsels, but a fork would como mighty handy, and a spoon would bo oven better, for you find it almost impossible to convey anything from your tray to- your mouth with chopsticks. They slip and wabble and cross each other with a de pravity that seems intentional. You drop your food into your lap and up on the floor in a most amusing but embarrassing manner. Your host of fers a fork or a spoon, but the spirit of American independence asserts itself and you make anothor effort. Finally the host remarks courteously: "Sometimes we do- it this way." and lifts his bowl to his lips and shovels in the food as you would shovel coal into a cellar. This method cannot be recommended for gracefulness or re finement, but it is better than starva tion. There are half a dozen dishes in each course and your host kindly tells yon what they are. First suiniono, a kind of beau soup; kuchitori, chestnuts boiled and crushed into a mush ; ka ma boko, fish picked fine and then rolled into little balls and baked; sashimi, raw fish cut into tiny slices anil cov ered with ice. This ia dipped into- a rich sauce called soy, ami really doesn't taste as bad as it sounds. Each course is served with little cups of warm sake. There is no bread or butter, and you will not have a napkin offered you un less you ask for it. The second course ia a small fish broiled whole, with the head and tail on, which is very diMlcult to eat with chopsticks; umani, bits of fowl boiled with lotus roots or potatoes; a little salad made of onions, peas and string beans, with a few leaves of lottuoe or cresses; su -no-mono, sen slugs served with eggplant, mashed as we do pota toes, aud cuawan-mtishi, a thick, cus tardy soup made of fish and vegeta bles, with mushrooms for a relish. The third course is usually a curry with rice and pickled vegetables, suoU OEISHA (imii FLAVINS THE BAM ISBN. as eggplant, cabbage leaves, radishes and onions ; and for a fourth and final course you have soba, a sort of buok whoat vermioelli served with soy and a swoot liquenr called mirin ; shiruko, rice cakes, sea weed and all sorts of confectionery, which is very sweet aud tasteless. The nesans keep your sake cup full and during the course of the dinner each member of the oompany rises and proposes the health of the host and then some other guost until the whole natty is disposed of. This is a trying ordeal to one who does not like sake, for you must lift your little cup to your forehead in saluatation eaoh time and then empty it in three aips. It holds but a thimbleful, but it is fiery stall and inflames the blood more than our brandy. It is customary also to drink the health of the waitresses, who bow their foreheads to the floor in acknowledgment while the compli ment is paid tbem. At the close of the dinner the tabako boq, a tray holding a tiny hibaohi with live coals in a cone of ashes and a seotion of bamboo for an ash receiver is placed before you, and cigarettes and oigars aro passed around in boxes of cloisonne that tempt yon to violate the commandmeut that forbid steal ing. You rise from a Japanese dinner with your legs aching, a sense of nn- neoessary fullness and a craving for food, and when you reach the hotel you feel inolined to send for a plate of crackers and cneese or a saudwicn. The native diet is clean, free from grease aud rich in carbon, but it does not satisfy the foreign appetite, and to sit on your heels for two hours is more tiresome than ohmbing a mount ain. High Explosives. According to the opinion of Super intendent Barker of the arms faotory at Sparkbrook, England, and a prom inent expert in that line, the possibil ities of the industrial use of high ex plosives for generating motive power are a fit subjeot for study. Of the gunpowder engine he thinks only slightly, as such an explosive merely develops in oombustion about 280 vol umes of permanent gases, while the olid residues are very considerable, aoon dogging any machine ; neverthe less, one ponud of gunpowder is cap able of developing 170,820 foot pounds of energy. SECRETS OF FASHION TIIK Vfclfj MKTF.I FROM AtT- TL'.MN ANI WINTKIt STYIjKM. Textures nml Colors to tin More splendid Than Kver-Plal.ls Coming: In Again. A Ilravc Illue. UltEKAl tho iron silence of fashionmakers has been broken at lnt, and the arbit ers of stylos have consented to lift the veil of luturo modes. There was a marked disinclination to talk around autumn ami winter styles. Yet, writes the Now York correspondent of the Chicago Record, a few of tho great big wigs have been persuaded to kIiow here and there acme early confection which, if not pointing toward any radical changes in cut, seem to indicate that textures and colors are to be more splendid than ever. In the war of shapings likoly to be carried over to a new seanon at a lead ing dressmaker's it was learned that there will be doubtless tho redingotes and short "court" ccata that have al ready rooi-ived catchet from elegant Parisicnnes. Hound bodies will also continue, in gauzy instances banging sometimes over the belt, back, and front, in a complete blouse effect, and ith the round bodies, especially in the case of evening gowns in stiff silk for slight figures, flared pcplum tails, shaped like the shorter ones of the jacket shown, will irequently be added. Again, this pophim effect may be made by squarish tabs of luce,, slight- ' u S V'OUN'G LADl'S BODICE. A very neat anil UylUh bodice for cut, the material being a violet swiveled silk gingham, the front is ar ranged in three broad plaits, which are drawn in narrow at the waist, the oen tre frout being ornamented with three leg-o'-mutton sleeves have a lining of to the bodice are made of deep pansy ly wider at bottom than at top, and hung at intervals all round. In the way of autumn and winter suggestions for street wear, the only new things as yet to be seen were at the smart dressmaking establishments, the importers of confections, and at one of these plaoes some line samples in novelty wools, in splendid autumn tints, seemed to indioate that plaids were coming iu again. The choicest tints in these were rich reds and browns and butter and Octo ber leaf yellows; the patterns broken bars in different shadings aud then squared with black, which gave tone to the whole. In no instance was the faded color of the summer soen, but a bold plaid in strange bluet, webbed over with blaok, and so familiarly creponated that one would have called it crepon had it not been known that this word was now forbiddon in polite fashion circles. "Of course crepons will be worn," said the fashion light who was show ing off the sample. "Too many have been made for the manufacturers to be willing to shelve thorn entirely. "Only they will be called by a now name, perhaps simply 'nouveautes' " and the great general of Hue olothes smiled cunningly. In the way of stuffs for evening wear some pompa dour silks, gorgeously hued and of a boardlike thickness, were simply awe some in their magnitioenoo. A green brocade, whioh shados in movement .ide a lizard's skin, waa pattorned with great gold bettles that stood out like the figures on Chinese draperies. In ilain cloth a brave blue that hinted of bugles and battlefields wus novel and elegant. It was just the tint of the trousers worn by United States soldiers ; and when later on it was discovered in part-composition of a dashing visiting toilet, one was not surprised to hear that it had been dubbed "soldier blue." All the dark portiou of it is blaok satin, the light, the soldier-blue olotb ; the buttons are wooden molds covered with the satin, the outline embroidery being in aopper and jet on the blue. A strik ing bodice is a carriage souave in "faded" peaoook-blue olotb, with square revers in wbiti brooade, the figures of which are superbly out lined in blaok an3 gilt. The wide border and smart, square lapels are in the same gold and blaok embroid ery, and tha gown worn with this very of black pcad rnriTt m.otisn waiht. Tho accompanying cut shows nn ad mirable model lor a bloiiso waist for silk, grass lawn, or any thin texture, and, if very light in tone, black laco may be employed ; but a cream-colored lace of the guipure stamp, with front of net, strewn with paillettes, and the collar and waist bow in silk of a dnrkor color,, makes a very smart combina tion. A blouse such as this- is useful for evening wear at country house visits, more especially when made of China silk in some delicate tint, aud adorned with light-colored laco. A WALKING XWTOWB. This walking costume has a skirt of figured crepon a new material in shades of green and black. The waist is of black satin, with white satin sleeves, striped with cream, lace inser tion. The waistcoat is of chartreuse green velvet, forming a satth at tho back. The sleeves are immensely full a young girl is pictured in the above large buttons iu Russian enamel. The thin crinoline, and the belt and collar mirror velvet. and set in sharp plaits, each plait being stitched flat at the edges. The frout of the waist is of fine cream lace, and a few rhinestone buttons will add greatly to the effect of what is really a stunuing suit. THB FLAT BRAID COIFfURE. A revival of the peasant mode of wearing the hair in vogue fifteen or twenty years ago is seen on the streets of Eastern cities, It carries with it an air of neatness in warm weather that oan not be got by any other style of wearing the hair. Young women who have not a heavy head of hair eke it out with a bow of ribbon, but the prettiest coiffure is that of many fiat braids pinned olosely to the head. Its shape may be varied to suit the shape of the bead, a round kuot ra quiring a mat-like elfeot, a long coif fure the oval face. Professor Max Muller bus in his Eossession a handsome gold oigar case earing the signature of the Sultan of Turkey, who presented it to him. elegant voriago will be do soiu. FOU TUB rROMENADE. amallesx op nnrtiiMcs. It tins Forly-sl.T Inhabitants, and the Women Vote. Ou tho route from tho Italian con tinent to Caprera lies Tavoliira, an isl and a milo wide, which has forty-Aye) inhabitants. King Chnrles Albert of Piedmont made Paul, Hie head of tho Bartoloui family, owner, King and ahsolnto ruler of the pluco iu 18:111. For forty-six years hn managed his little kingdom admirably ; ami, dying, e expressed tho wish that the isl- fiT- . zs& SMALLEST nKPfnMO IJf THE WOULD. anders should he allowed to govern themselves. Tho experiment proved successful, and Tavolara was declared republic in 1830, while two years later the State was formally recog nized by the Italian Government. Its President is elected for live years, anil ts public otileials give their services freo of charge. Women have the privilege of voting as well as men. Unoe the island 1m l a narrow escape of becoming tho site of a gambling casino like that of Monte Carlo. Cer tain British speculators desired to ac quire the place for tuts purpose, and tho proposal was likely to be enter tainod, but the Government ultimately prohibited tho sale. Ou the island there is a peculiar breed of wild goats whose jaws and teeth aro covered with a golden enamel. it is believed that this is derived from the water on tho island, which contains a largo quan tity of mineral matter. New York Press. A f iirliiu. Ibilnin'p. Experiments with the hydrometro as a chemical lmlauce have been made by an Euglinh chemist, Mr. II. J. Phil lips, aud have resulted in a simple in strument that is useful for certain purposes. Uilded brass bulbs aro screwed to au aluminum utem, floated in water in a glass cylinder, and Kopt upright iu the centre of the vessel by two arras moving on perpendicular guide rods. A small alumiuum pan U daced at the top of the stem. Under the guiding arms are needlo points, and a movable neodle is attached to one of the guide rodx. Iu weighing out a definite quautity, the weight is first placed in the pan. The guide rod needle is then moved opposite the needles of the arms, the weight is re moved, and the substance to be weighed is gradually dropped into the pan until tbo stem sinks to the point indicated. The range of weight that can be recorded is limited, aud with the delicacy, depends upon the stem of the float Irenton (.V J.) Amer ican. Luxiirlnnt Hair, It is very seldom that so lux uriant a growth of hair as that illubtrated is met with in Australia, the summer heat, it is believed, AN KXTnAORDINARV OROWTH OF HAIR. causing decay and loss ou many heads. The length of the hair in our picture is five feet four inohes, and its color bright auburn. The lady, who resides in Melbourne, ia a native of Auckland, New Zealand. San Francisco Chron icle. But Little Diflereiice. The hero of Bo-1 The hero of to-day. man days.
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