Western Kansas World

SHOPPING IN PERSIA.

Only Servants and Women of Poorer Class Go to Stores.

Americans who travel in the East exclaim with wonder over the strange sights seen in the streets of oriental cities. "How odd," they cry, "how extraordinary!" They almost never realize that American streets are full of sights quite as strange, very perplexing, sometimes shocking, when first seen by the eyes of a man or woman of the orient.

"Shall I confess that one of the amazing things observed by an eastern traveler in any large American town is the way in which women, great numbers of women of all ages, throng the sidewalks of business streets and crowd the retail shops?" asks a writer in McCall's Magazine.

To a Persian at least the sight is as novel as a regiment of women soldiers would be drilling on a military parade ground.

"In my home country, Persia, there are indeed servants and very poor women who go personally to the bazaars and shops to buy food supplies and clothing, but they are not the women who have what we may call position in society any more than have the women who scrub the floors of American office buildings and railway stations.

"The wife or daughter of any respectable Persian man would no more think of visiting a grocer's shop or the shop of a butcher than a well bred American woman would think of pushing open the doors of a drinking shop -what you call a cafe and ordering a gallon of rum.

"The public market is not considered a suitable place for a lady. The man of the family does most of the buying of meats and grains, sugar, vegetables and fruit. If a woman is widowed there is always some friendly neighbor willing to transact such business for her.

"The neighbor's wife visits the widow and asks what is needed. The marketing is done in her behalf, and she is not obliged to come down to the level of a poor servant sent on humiliating errands."