Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 307, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1911 — DEFECT OF MODERN SOCIETY [ARTICLE]

DEFECT OF MODERN SOCIETY

3o Great the Expenditure for Clothes That Little Is Left to Be Em* ■ ' ployed Elsewhere. The cost of dress, the absurd lengths to which expenditure goes on luxurious and sumptuous clothing, is now pushed, to such an extreme' that a woman’s fortune, like that of a savage beauty, may often be seen on her person, and there is no margin left for entertaining, for all that makes social intercourse delightful. Three years ago it was said by a senator’s -wife that only the very rich could now give dinner parties.at ail, and that for modest fortunes entertaining in any form, except the mild dissipation of afternoon tea and cakes, was out of the question. What, it may be asked, is the use of all this amazing expenditure on finery, if the furs and trinkets, the hats and robes are not to he exhibited on festive occasions to friends and admirers? A woman may be dressed to perfection from head to foot, hut if no one is to see it,'and sociability goes by the board in the effort to be beautiful, to what end has she made all this effort? The matter is grotesque, and why her men folk do not put a stop to it is food for wonder. You might as well, if you were a child, hive a doll which Is attired in such costly and sumptuous fashion that you can never take it out of its cupboard, nor afford to ask your little friends to tea to look at it. ’There is no doubt that in France, where the love of dress originates, and where our woman first fall a victim to this fever for clothes, they worship to the point of absurdity the well-dressed woman.