Daily Independent

Living Off the Pretty Girls.

"There are now a number of men," remarked the head of a big printing house yesterday, "who actually make a living off the society girls. Whether it is a legitimate living or not the public can judge. The girls don't know anything about it, but they are a source of profit all the same. To begin with, there are the scurvy scribblers of the society papers who sell their paragraphs about New York's pretty women at a cent a word, and who manage to eke a more or less twisted and unsatisfactory living out of the pastime. Then there are the lithographers and tobacco and soap box decorators, who take the faces of the pretty women of New York, color them into allegorical shape, and serve them up to the boundless millions of the country for the purpose of decorating their wares. The instant one of these girls becomes at all notorious, like the Duchess of Marlborough, Lady Randolph Churchill, Mrs. Potter or any one of the others who have jumped into fame, the cigarette manufacturers send a counterfeit presentment of their faces broadcast through the world. Then there is the sale of their photographs by the shopkeepers along Broadway. A further illustration of the profit is seen in our weekly papers, which devote a great deal of space and some mighty good engravings to describing the beauties of New York, so that there is a good side after all to the society gossip of the American press, since it puts bread into the mouths of so many hardworking and industrious dealers in personalities."
—New York Sun.