Dripread - Book

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� December 9, 1911
� 4 to 7 o'clock

The daughter's given name is only used in case she has an older
unmarried sister.

Ball and Evening Reception.

A more elaborate form of coming-out party consists of a ball or of an
evening reception followed by dancing, and in this case the card
contains the word "Dancing" below the date of the entertainment and the
hours at which it is given. Few homes are large enough to provide for
even a small dance, and so a party of this sort is generally given at a
hotel. The guests as well as the receiving party wear evening gowns
without hats, and men are expected to come in full evening clothes,
which means the long-tailed coats and not the popular Tuxedo, white
gloves, and, although this is not obligatory, white waistcoats.

After a girl has been introduced into society she has her individual
visiting-cards, makes her own calls and is allowed to receive her own
friends. Social customs differ with locality, and the chaperon is less
customary in the West than in the East. In many cities girls are allowed
to go to the theater and to evening parties with a man friend without a
married woman being included in the party. A wise girl, however, is
careful that any man she meets shall be introduced as soon as possible
to some older member of her family and to introduce a young man calling
for the first time to either her mother or father. Also when she accepts
an invitation to an evening's entertainment she insists that her escort
shall call for her at her own home and bring her directly home at the
close of it. Dining or supping at a restaurant alone with a young man is
sure to expose a girl to criticism.

A Woman's Lunch.

There are many pleasant forms of entertainment offered to a young girl
entering society in which men are not included, and the most popular of
these is a woman's lunch. This is a favorite form of entertainment for a
young married woman to give in honor of some girl friend who has just
come out in society or whose engagement has just been announced. One
o'clock or half after is the usual hour, and the meal is served in
courses and is as elaborate as the household resources may allow. The
decorations of the table are important, and three courses are sufficient
if they are carefully arranged. Handsome street costumes are worn for a
function of this sort, and the guest of honor, if there is one, dresses
as the others do. Outer wraps are left in the hall or in a room put
aside for this purpose, and, as a rule, hats are retained and gloves
removed when the guests sit down at table.

The custom of wearing a hat during lunch is not an arbitrary one, and it
is not universal. In France, for example, where social customs are most
carefully observed, it is the custom to wear handsome afternoon gowns if
invited for the noon meal and to remove hats. The noon meal there is a
social function, and certain formalities are observed. In London, on the
contrary, no matter if a number of guests are expected, lunch is an
informal occasion, and women dress for lunch as they would for an
afternoon tea.

Hats are worn and women are prepared to rush off afterwards to meet
other engagements. The English custom prevails now in the large cities
in America, and, moreover, women seem disinclined to remove their hats
after they are once dressed for the round of the day's social
obligations.

It is simpler and really quite conventional to leave the wearing of hats
to the individual. The hostess should ask her guest if she wishes to
take her hat off or retain it, and she can at the same time intimate to
her guest, if she is a stranger in the town, what the others will
probably do in this connection. True hospitality on the part of the
hostess is to make her guests at ease, and true politeness on the part
of the visitor is to conform to the rules governing the community that
she is visiting.

PROPER APPAREL FOR MEN.

American gentlemen are no longer dependent on English tailors or on
English fashions as they were some years ago. The American type of
physique is a distinct one, and London tailors have never been able to
fit American men as well as they do their own clients. Moreover social
life is so different in the United States from what it is in England
that men really need different clothes.

Practically all American men are business men for the working hours of
the day, and few of them have any time or inclination for anything save
business clothes

The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing / A Manual of Ready Reference