New York Girls Seek a Nice Creepy Feeling.
When a woman adopts a fad, says the New York World, she enters right into the spirit of the thing and it becomes almost a mania with her for the time being.
Generally the pretty little whim appears [sic] to her artistic nature or is something so ultra-fashionable that it delights her very soul.
The latest and most erratic fad which has numerous devotees in this city is that set in vogue by a popular young lady, who certainly possesses a strong “creepy” vein in her composition. Nothing so delights this eccentric creature as to gaze for hours upon bodies in the Morgue.
A theatre party with a lunch at Delmonico’s has no charm for her compared with the inexpressible joy attendant upon a visit to the Morgue.
At all hours of the day she can be found at this uncanny spot.
The other day this same artistic woman purchased a Kodak, which is now her constant companion as she gayly wends her way towards the Morgue.
She takes pictures, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups.
These photographs are not wasted by any means, for they are used in a decorative manner. Many of them are elaborately framed and occupy conspicuous positions in her boudoir. Among the odd things which are used to furnish this elegant apartment is a coffin. It now stands in one corner and acts as a cabinet. Small shelves have been fitted in, upon which rests certain relics very dear to the owner. They include such articles as a piece of silk, all that now remains of some fair woman’s shroud, a set of teeth elaborately filled with gold, a lock of hair and a wedding ring. It need hardly be added that her room is not the most cheerful place one could enter.
Nothing can be conceived which is more incongruous than a little banner hanging in her room upon which are written the words, “sleep sweetly within this quiet room oh, thou, whoe’er thou art.”
One eminent physician, who is in possession of the above facts, said that he considered it a mild form of insanity: “Yet,” said he, “eccentricity is rather the better word to use in describing this latest craze.”
Whatever it may be termed the interesting fact remains that the “fad” has many adherents among women, who pronounce it “awfully sweet.”
From the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1891 Morbid Scrapbook