Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 303, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1917 — Page 2

‘‘What Shall I Give My Friends?”

A CHRISTMAS gift that can’t be used and enjoyed is a disappointment. The average man or woman would rather receive a post card with a cheerful “Merrie Christmas” on it than a gift that is just perfunctory. The war has made us all alert this year for the cheer and welfare of our

boys on the sea and in the army. So why not knit the young patriots gray wool sweaters and those excellent long-wristed mittens, with finger tips missing not to impede their work at the riggings and behind the guns? Uncle Sam does not furnish the boys with these two winter luxuries.

Illustrated is a desk set for father, hubby or sweetheart. If you are clever you can saw it out of thin pine and enamel it beautifully, filling it with good paper, pens and stamps. Or you can make the frame of stiff cardboard and cover it with any attractive paper that matches his den or library. Handmade lingerie is always a test of affection. So make sister an undervest made of crei«e de chine. One yard and a quarter of a good quality of

crepe, the same quantity of beading and a little more narrow ribbon are required. Cut the vest straight, hem on stheJjottom, put the beading across the top and run the ribbon through it. Six sachets filled with the favorite spent of the recipient and made, say, in heart shape-edged with narrow lace, would be attractive, and they are always useful.. Ltttielavender silk bags ’’filled with dried lavender flowers would be appreciated by anyone with h Unen closet

Christmas Gifts That Are Sure to Please

CHRISTMAS comes on apace, and the usual question confronts every shall I give my friends this year?*! If the outlay cannot be very much is a good idea to make some to serve. \ Purchase enough white georgette crepe to make a collar and cuffyset. Perhaps the collar can follow the putfine of a coat difficult to fit wljh a ready-made collar of white, or a dainty shape may be designed for use with a

fancy waist. The point is to keep the edges straight rather than rounding, for we will have the border machine hemstitched, or the edge can be stitched or hemstitched with fine white silk and finished with tiny embroidered dots of white silk or French knots of a faintly contrasting color. Or make sister a fetching breakfast jacket of georgette crepe, voile or dimity. Close it on the left side, hand embroider the front and gird it with her favorite shade of satin ribbon. Candle shade patterns may be stamped in a grape design, which could be

effectively carried out ift cut work, and another design is of an iris pattern. The shade pictured is more conventional, being intended for an electric candle. "Fluted paper is neatly pasted together the desired size and decorated with gold or silver gimp. Toddlers and babies always need new dresses. Try the pattern illustrated in either chambray or linen and

smock the front in any harmonizing color or a contrast. A dozen or so of homemade crullers wrapped separately in oiled paper and packed in a dainty basket such as can be purchased for from 10 to 25 cents should be an acceptable gift for some man friend who livesalri a hotel. For a bachelor friend a gift of similar nature is a homemade cake done up in white paper and placed in a holly trimmed box. Most men have a secret sweet tooth, and Christmas seems to be the time to have it filled. r Men as a rule do not like to receive wearing apparel a? gifts, especially socks, but embroider a man’s monogram on the said socks and you will find him delighted. _

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

Reason Behind Each New Style

New York. —Everything that was invented in clothes this year had a reason. Skirts are narrow because the French government limited the use .of cloth to five meters. They are minus fasteners because these accessories were difficult to get and war-time activities demanded a speedy method of dressing, so frocks were made to go over the head and tie around the body in a primitive fashion. Certain dyes were exploited because there were no others to ’ be had. Fringed fabrics were introduced be-

Leopard meets muskrat in this coat made by Callot. It serves for the street and the motor. The cap is arranged to match, with its leopard skin crown and its upturned muskrat brim.

cause applied ornamentation was costly and the supply was vastly decreased from that of former days. Immense top coats with inter-lin-ings were made by the dozens because the French women were compelled to walk through a lack of taxicabs, and the American women were supposed to have started on a system of economy which would compel them to walk instead of paying money for taxis. Voluminous peltry was applied to all costumes because of the intense cold on both continents last winter and because of the scarcity of coal in Paris last January and the promise of it in this country for this winter. The Paris designers have given all kinds of anecdotal reasons for their gowns, and some of the American dressmakers who are not given to eitheir narrative or reasons for their clothes, are repeating the French talk in an interesting way. Most Dominant Fashion. The most dominant fashion produced this winter is the garment that slips on over the head and has pieces of the material to tie it into place. This is quite as primitive as in days when Melisande-lived, loved and died. A year ago, the reporters who study clothes intently and with an inside knowledge of scarcity of certain materials, prophesied that the near future would bring about women’s clothes that were fashioned to be adjusted without fasteners. France sent up some trial balloons in gowns that were cut in two pieces and tied around the. hips by a sash that was a bit of the material of the front width and evidently these trial balloons proved that the air was safe for the sending out of dozens of such frocks. The Americans have accepted them in high glee. It is a novelty that tickles the mind of the novelty-hunt-ing American women. When you see a group of fashionably dressed women eagerly talking and gesticulating, pulling out pieces of a frock here and there and turning themselves around as on a pivot, you will realize that they are each explaining to the other how the frock is adjusted without a hook and eye, without a button and without a loop. Coat Suits Catch Fever. The new coat suits have caught the fever, and some of the best are adjusted with merely a loop of military braid run through a buttonhole and tied back on itself. < The smartest afternoon gowns have large buttonholes from neck to waist, through which are run pieces of braid or picot-edged ribbon tying the two fronts together. No woman who likes puzzles and who is fond of trying ouf novel schemes, can fail to be interested in this game. She can wear a new gown with a new kind of fastening and crow Over her neighbors as though she had

taken In the largest subscription for the Liberty loan. It may develop Into a pastime, if the interest and excitement in this kind of clothing keep up. At the moment of writing, our government has not put an embargo on the amount of material to be used in each gown. Germany and France have both done this, and those who are in Paris say that the French dressmakers have taken the keenest delight in following the decree. A quantity of material In a gown has never appealed to a French designer, and with the government behind the elimination of fabrics, each of the gowns turned out this year shows originality of conception and treatment in achieving an artistic result with a very few meters of cloth. The French Silhouette. A few of the Anaerican clothes which were designed before the French silhouette was thoroughly accepted,- have taken their place a little behind the front row of fashions because theyybok bunglesome. Here is the FrencnSsllhouette as the bestdressed Americans have adopted it: A slim underskirt made in one piece that runs from the collarbone nearly to the ankle in a street frock, and from bust to within six inches of the ankle in an evening gown. It Is merely the skeleton of the gown, but on it are draped the few remaining yards of fabric that are allowed to complete the work. Therefore, it is quite fashionable to use transparent material for the afternoon and evening, in order to slow the slim little slip beneath. It is not necessary that the transparent fabric used over this slip should bo cut off to correspond. It may rise to the shoulders and drop to the instep, and in that very alluring transparency, you get the East Indian effect. The statement may be taken as authoritative that whatever gown has

This durable coat for winter nights is of olive green velvet, with collar, cuffs and hem of Russian fitch. It is made on long, loose lines, like a cape, with the front held into the figure by a band that passes around the back.

a gathered drop skirt is out of the fashion. You may gather the top material, but the lining must be slim and cut closely to the lines of the figure, although it is not drawn in at the waist.

KNIT HAT OF SATIN RIBBON

One Hundred and Forty Yards Required to Weld the Fascinating Piece of Headgear Into Shape. At the precise moment that the command is issued to reduce the measurement of every new frock we are confronted with a hat which exacts no less than 140 yards of ribbon, to make it, says a Paris letter. Just think of it! One hundred and forty yards to fashion an amusing fancy for resort. It may be as well to add that the ribbon chosen is satin, as a rule, and it is knitted into shape according to the latest whim of Dame Fashion. These hundred and forty yards of ribbon, however, will not run the risk of compromising either the resources or the future of our country, for many young coquettes find amusement in welding this fascinating type of headgear into shape by their own agile fingers. For sport and country wear the vogue for crocheted or knitted hats, made either in silk or wool, grows each day, and, always evolved in the most “vivid hues” possible, these affairs are made; to harmonize with the jersey or sports coat and the scarf they accompany.

Black Satin Bows.

A French model in black satin shows jaunty little bows of this material at the turned-back cuffs that terminate the elbow-length sleeves.

Home Town Helps

CANNOT IMPROVE ON NATURE Gardeners Are Inclined to Make SoCalled Improvements Which Ruin Beauty of Landscape. The poet Wordsworth wrote: “Laying out grounds, as it is called, may be considered as a liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting; and its object, like that of all the liberal arts, is, or ought to be, to move the affections under the control of good sense. If this be so when we are merely putting together words or colors, how much more ought the feeling to prevail when we are in the midst of the realities of things; of the beauty and harmony, of the joy of happiness of human creatures; of men and children, Of birds and beasts, of hills and streams, and trees and flowers, with the changes of night and day, evening and morning, summer and winter, and all their unwearied actions and energies.” All those about to garden in rural districts would do well to read the foregoing several times if extensive changes are contemplated, says the Los Angeles Times. All too many view the natural landscapes as something to be obliterated, overcome, or subdued; whereas, quite to the contrary, it generally needs assistance and accentuation to bring out still stronger its best natural features. Too much destruction is visited upon the fair face of nature when man commences his so-called improvements. Hills are cut down, canyons and hollows filled, trees and shrubs uprooted, areas burned over, all not only unnecessary but absolutely ruinous to natural beauty and constituting moral criminality that by rights should be punishable by laws aimed to protect primal beauty against the machinations of the vandal, man. Too often the beauty spoiler uproots a fine native tree or shrub to make room for a poorer one from Tehuantepec or Timbuctoo, ignorant, evidently, that he has made a very poor exchange and paid money for the fancied privilege of doing so. We need a campaign of education that he who now destroys will recognize that if he lived a thousand years and spent fortunes he - could never improve upon what nature has given us except by aiding and adding and never by destroying and reconstructing. Landscape gardening has rightly been called “the art that doth mend nature.”

WILL ADOPT PLAN

Syndicate Proposes to Construct Large Number of “Co-operative Homes" in Pennsylvania City. Plans are under way to construct at least 1,000 homes in Marcus Hook, Delaware county, Pennsylvania. One of the most interesting of the projects is for the construction of 57 houses on a plan similar to that of the English village of Chester. This plan is sponsored by a Philadelphia syndicate, and the estimated cost is upwards of $250,000. According to specifications the village will center at an intersection of two streets. The proposed homes will be of the type known as “co-operative homes,” similar to those being built at Bourneville and Port Sunlight, England. The dwellings will be built of brick and stucco, with sloping roofs and will be set well back on lawns. At each of the four corners of the four principal residential squares there will be a triangular shaped lawn with shrubbery and flowers.

Damage From Lightning Small.

The damage to property from lightning is so small that it is aluiost negligible, in comparison to the damage by fire of other origin. That .modern building construction makes the danger from lightning much less in the cities than it is in the. country is the contention of the Electrical Review, which says that the metallic roofs and the steel that enters largely into the construction' of buildings in the cities seem to rob the lightning of most of its destructive power, even if buildings are struck.

Passing-Through Parks.

Small parks in congested business centers are necessarily “passingthrough” parks. Central Square in Los Angeles is one of them, says the Los Angeles Times. More people each day use It to pass through than the total of those who merely loiter for a whole month. For that reason no landscaping should be done that .will interfere with traffic, utility being the first consideration. This is not necessarily true of a small park in a small town where It is the only one and must serve all purposes.

Nut Trees Make Good Shade.

Nut trees make good shade; in the fields in groves they may become profitable, in the barn lot they serve' an excellent purpose, and along the roadside they should always be planted.

"Pea Tree" For Garden.

The “pea tree,” botanically known as Caraganus arborescens, is described as a shrub worthy of place in any garden, yet its foliage is good for browsing.

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Dandies by Order.

The English infantrymen, as he appeared in the days of George 11, would have looked askance at such a garb as khaki, observes a correspondent. When he went into the battle of Fontenoy he was resplendent in a loose scarlet coat, with skirts looped up at the sides to give a certain amount of freedom to the legs. A long and closebuttoned cloth waistcoat, blue breeches, long white gaiters, and a conical headdress of cloth completed the uniform, the coat collar being open at the chest to show a white shirt. The Prussian foot-soldier of the time was clad on the same lines, and so that his powdered head might be kept in fitting order his kit was supposed to Include a curling-iron, a comb, a powder bag with puff, and a supply of pomade and tallow. His hair had to be greased, curled and powdered daily, his pig-tail tied, and the cock of his hat set right.

Important to Mothers

Examine carefully every bottle of CASTORIA, that famous old remedy for infants and children, and see that it Bears the //&/) Signature of In Use for Over 30 Years. Children. Cry for Fletcher’s Castoria

Long Journey of a Package.

The wide wandering of a parcel was described by a soldier now stationed at Egypt. Writing to his mother, he says: “I received a parcel last week which I think was posted In South Africa, somewhere about September, 1916. It had gone to the Hants’ in France, thence to four hospitals, which sent it to Blighty and to two hospitals there which forwarded It on to the officer in charge of records, Warwick. He in turn sent it to the officer In charge records, Exeter, then Ryde, and lastly to Egypt. Jolly lucky to get It after ten months, don’t you think so? It contained a good soft shirt, a pair of socks, three khaki handkerchiefs, boracic powder. The address of the sender was obliterated and the postmark a smudge.”

Prosaic Environment.

“Fate plays queer tricks on a man," remarked Mn Twobble. “No doubt.” “I always thought I would propose to the woman I would marry where there was a sheen of silver and cut glass, and shaded lights were softly glowing and behind a screen of palms an orchestra was playing a Hungarian waltz.” “Yes?” “As a matter of fact, I proposed to Mrs/Twobble in a jitney bus.”

Perquisites.

“The head waiter seems to scorn my modest tip.” “Did you offer him real money?” “Yes.” “No wonder he scorned tWB small change. What’s money to a man who can collect all the left-over bread and beefsteak and potatoes and everything.”

What She Wanted.

“John, dear,” said Mrs. Youngbride, “I wish you’d bring home a chest protector.” “A chest protector? What for?” “Someone has been robbing our Ice chest,” she said with perfect innocence.

To keep clean and healthy take Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets. They regulate liver, bowels and stomach.?-- Adv.

To Study Industry.

A laboratory to be created at Helsingfors, Finland, for the study of technical industrial problems, will be supported In part by the government, but largely by a number of private concerns.

It’s a striking coincidence that the things a boy likes to throw at break easiest.

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