Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — CHILDREN’S CLOTHES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHILDREN’S CLOTHES.

Birr UTTLE CHANGE IN STYLE IS NOTICEABLE. TUi It Parttcoiarty Fort mate tar the HotbMa Who Meed to Practice Eoanom; —XJttle Folk's Dresses Are Beta* Patterned After Those Worn by Toes tor Little Tote Meer-Wortt correspondence:

.g| UT little change LAK is noticeable in if* ■children’s fashions, for during tho past year little girls r wear has partaken less PH and less of the marked charaoteristics of their tn elders’ garb. This jd is particularly ill f ortunate for ala mothers who llLjg, need to practice Brai economy, and a EJj lucky thing for [ children general- | ly, for the tot L who is gotten up a to show in miniature all the current ecoentrici-

ties and oddities of women's styles is dressed too fancifully. Good taste always admits of suggesting in the child's garments the late developments in fashions for mature wearers, and so, too, do current practices; but it is now seldom overdone, with the result that children's clothes are all the more suitable for children. As illustrating what is permissible, take the child's apron _ shown in the initial picture. Here, in the yoke, there i 6 direct patterning after the shoulder effects women now deem so neoessary, but the sleeves do not follow out this suggestion in the least. It is well that they do not, for if a pair of huge balloon puffs were plaoed on those tiny shoulaers, the child would decidedly resemble a caricature. The garment comes nearly to the hem of the little dress and is made of pink batiste. It Is laid in three pleats in back and buttons beneath the center one. It is cut away at the top and the opening filled In with a yoke of lace and batiste insertions, round in back and pointed in front, and finished in a full lace frill.

The front breadths are laid In six pleats and the tiny sleeves are partially covered with frills of thread lace. The strings commence at the sides and tie in back, and the gathered skirt part is sewed to the top or bodice portion with two rows of gatners at the waist Garments which furnish protection for the little one’s dresses and which are at the same time dreßsy and becoming and scarce enough. This model seems to possess all these qualities, and, of course, It can be transposed into coarse stuff without losing much of any of them. In the next two illustrations blousod dresses are shown, and this might at first thought be taken to mean that the current rage for blouse waists, which would inundate our young women did it not carry them high on its crest to increased daintiness, had reached the children. But the latter were ever much in blouses, so no charge of aping their elders will hold The first example of these two is a simple little gown in blue and white-striped rep, with a white bengaline yoke, and Is suitable for girls from four to six years. The yoke is fini-hed with a frill of ecru lace, and the tiny skirt is gathered to the bodice, which hangß over like a blouse, front and back. The dress buttons behind and has ribbon garniture and a ribbon belt. The second child’s blouse ocmes from pink surah and is made with a fitted lining hooking in back. The round yoke is made of lace and the lining is cut away, only a narrow band being left at the bott m, to which the straight, lull breadths of the surah are gathered with a head, as shown, six breadths being required. The bottom has a draw string or an elastic, and is turned under like the sailor blouses. The Burplice sleeves are made entirely of lace

and are finished by a twisted arrangement of surah across the shoulder, while the standing collar consists of lace with narrow pink ribbons run through it. In the same picture there appears one of the prettiest of the blouse models which this summer has brought forth in profusion, and its detailed description is not out of place in this connection, because it is especially adaptable to reproduction for wee folk’s wear. With the change of size should oome change of material, and white China silk might well replace the white satin of which the sketched garment is composed. But it is described as in the “grown-up" original, so that it may furnish suggestions for either use. It is made with pleated front and back and fitted sides, and is finished by a circular basque cut separately and joined to the bodice, the seam being overed with a twisted belt of white silk. A deep lace frill is caught in the collar seam and the ends reach to the waist as shown. The stand ng collar is made of folded silk with rosettes in back and front, to

- match the belt, but the moderately wide balloon sleeves are plain. Babies' apparel follows no law* but thoee of mothers, and they reflect so many material crotchets as to be beyond codification. Even fashion's laws could not oonvince a mother that she shouldn't drees her own babe as she pleases. Some mothers insist that there should be a distinct difference in the mode of dressing girl and boy babies, even at a month old. These would have for the boy no lace, frills, insertions, or furbelows. The little gowns are of the finest material and invariably white for both sexes, but here resemblance oeases, according to these philosophers. The little girl’s gown is no longer than the boy’s, hanging almost to the floor when the child is in nurse's arms. It may be made shortrsleeved and low-necked, a fashion which, in spite of the frantic appeals of physicians and reasonable-minded folk, is coming back. It may be laoetrimmed, real laoe always in the finest possible mesh and narrowest width, until the little maid is six months old or so, when the lace may be wider, but no less fine. The little dresses are daintily made in conformity, to a slight degree,

to the prevailing fashion for mamma. Fluffy frills extend from tiny shoulder to shoulder across front and back, eaoh frill lace edged. The short sleeves are sometimes puffs nearly as big as the little maid’s head, and now and then the frock is cut off the shoulders in true 1830 stylo. Certainly the satin skin seems too pretty to cover up though the crusty old doctor will say: “Better cover it up with clothes than with the oold ground!" But what taste have doctors! If her mother so elects, her baby boy will be dressed in much the same fashion; indeed, those who would distinguish the sex of the ohtld in arms in the mentioned ways are very much in the minority. By the time the child is in short dresses the face will be likely to tell the tale, and if it does not, then is time enough to consider the garb in this respect No badge is necessary for the youngster of the fourth picture, for the ootning man is apparent in the bright face. HU dress is made of fine white nainsook and trimmed with Swiss embroidery. The full skirt U perfectly plain and attached to the waUt and the little bodice is beited in at the waist with a band of embroidery, the yoke being of the same. Full puffed sleeves reach to the elbow and are finished off with a band of embroidery and a small frill of lace. White socks and black slippers with velvet rosettes oomplete his dainty rig. Baby’s dress No. 2, which the last picture show*, U in white lawn, and a pretty finish for it, and one whioh would lend a touch of femininity, would be little bows of blue ribbon to fasten the straps where they join the waist back and front, and rosettes of the same at shoulder* and wrists. Its waist is laid in fine pleats back and front and fine lawn straps edged with

narrow Hamburg pass over the shoulders. The skirt is entirely of white Hamburg and is gathered on to the waist Narrow Hamburg edges the full sleeves. A new and much Improved way to prove that you really belong to an old family is to dress your baby in the identical clothes that his great-great-grandmother or father were when said grand-parent was a mere child. Such little gowns are sure to be marvels of hand needlework and exquisite weave and of a delicate old white. It is whLpered that layettes of this style can be purchased at a or st so enormous that their coming from some really old family is thereby assured. It see ns incredible that any one would sell the little dresses worn by some wav back relative; even a spinster would, one would suppose, retain such things. These outfits may be genuine, but rumors of New England manufacturers of antiques of all sorts are sometimes heard, and ’tis but natural to suspect in these days. The swellest babies have no scented powder or soap. The finest castile in rough cakes is used and “prescription powder,” made acoording to the prescription of the attending physician. Powder of this sort can be made to cost more than any other way, which is the chief reason for its use. A little orris root in the basket where the clothes are kept is poe ibly permissible, but the baskets are no longer silk lined. Everything the young aristocrat wears must be embroidered with his monogram, or at least with his initials, an i he must ha-e tiny cards. W hen the child is three months old the mamma must give a reception and her infant’s card aocomranies her own for the invitation. Of course, baby is “at hone,” too, and most awfully does he usually behave. Copyright, 189*. Aocordino to Dr. Gould there are <5,100 stars in the Northern and 7,200 in the Southern Hemisphere distinctly visible to the naked eye. The enormous globe of Jupiter differs from ours in almost every respect It is eleven times larger in diameter than the earth, being 125 times greater in solidity. It gravitates slowly in a year equal to twelve of our years, at five times the distance from the sun. as oompared with us, so that the light and heat it receives are twenty-five times less intense than ours.

STYLISH MAID OF SIX

WIDELY DIFFERING BLOUSES.

WITH NO THOUGHT YET OF STYLE.

IN WHITE LAWN AND HAMBURG.