Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1913 — TO STOP SOCIETY “GRAFT” [ARTICLE]

TO STOP SOCIETY “GRAFT”

Devise Plan to Prevent Women From Wearing Gowns and Then Returning Them. New York. —The latest development of the graft-exposing fraud that is now sweeping through New York life is the revelation that women of wealth and good standing in New York society have joined the ranks of the grafters. Not only do these women take graft, but they go out and get it, and the situation has now reached a point where the department stores, which have been the worst sufferers,' have organized to protect themselves. The women have, qt course, been cruelly shocked to hear the right name given to their practice, which was one of the oldest and simplest of gentle grafts. The woman who feels that none of evening gowns would do for a particularly brilliant occasion would saunter into a store during the early afternoon, look over and try on gowns, till she found the handsomest one that she could wear, and order it sent home immediately “on approval.” Next day she would return the gown, saying that her husband did not like it, or that the color was all changed when she got it tn the gas light The store people, though they knew from the feel of the fabric that the gown had been worn for an evening, could not protest, for a customer, even a bad one, is always in the right, and the store is always in the wrong when it comes to a difference of opinion. . 1 The department stores’ cure for the trouble is simple and effective. They now paste a label of flimsy paper on the s.’eeve or back of each gown Ln a contracting color, big enough to be seen three blocks away. A tag or an ordinary sewed cloth label could be

removed, but the light paper, stuck on with a preparation that cannot harm the cloth, has to be torn off in scrape. If the label Is not In place the gown is regarded as sold /nd there’s an end to it