The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-01-23
Borrowed PlumeS.

Edinburgh, and Glasgow; but New
York is of all places the one in which
you can borrow most, provided you
pay. A correspondent writes to us:
The item of dress is most important
element in social warfare. A woman to
be in "society" at all must exhibit more
or less elaborate toilets. Even a man,
if he aspires to shine socially must, at
least occasionally, wear good clothes:
now how to obtain these toilets, and
question with the would-be movers of
our best society.
One would think it would be easy
enough to procure the necessary cloth
ing. Buy it-pay for it. Very fine.
But then the question arises, where and
how the deuce to raise the money to
pay for it. Because the very class OF
people of whom we write, the would be
movers in good society, are, as class,
impecunious, else they would not resort
to stratagem at all.
But the lack of money to buy dress
with can be got over. There is a balm
in Gilead, and there are people in New
York who hire out dresses--not mere
customers who lend masquerade dresses
for ball, but dressmakers who hire
out evening dresses for a private party
or entertainment.
There is dressmaker in Sixth Ave-
nue., near Fourteenth street. who makes
a very good pecuniary thing out Of it,
loaning out her dresses to would-be
fashionables during the fall and winter
Manya woman has through means of her
| IL Il, 10
quite fine appearance at some recep-
ton or entertainment from which
she would otherwise have been entirely
debarred. True, the dressRlaker charges
her customers a round sum-about ten
per cent of the entire value OF the dress
each time it is worn. True, by this
simple means the dressmaker contrives
to make one hundred dollar silk dress
pay about four hundred dollars n win
ter, but then at the same time the party
who wears the dress gets all the value
it could give her for 0 very small pro-
portion of its original cost. SO that in
transaction of this sort all persons
concerned ought to be we'll satisfied.
The dressmaker alluded to not only
loans evening dresses, but street dresses,
riding habits, etc., every variety of the
ladies ordinary wear. She also loans
out sealskin sacques in winter, in which
the borrower can cut q dash on Broad
way or on a sledging party. She also
| loans opera cloaks, and even deals in
temporary bonnets.
There are several dressmakers in New
York who follow the example of the in
genious modiste just alluded to. Nor
are the men forgotten. Several tailors
and costumers during the ball and
party season lend ont dress coats rang
ing from So to $15 in their charges for
so doing.
One ingenious youth in New York,
who has fine dress suit, often earns an
honest V or Y by loaning it to friend.
He calculates that outside of his own
occasional use of the suit it stands him
in about eighty dollars in the winter
paying an interest of thirty-three per
cent on the original cost.
A fashionable lady at one of the
American hotels also occasionally MAX
ing little pin money by hiring out her
elegant dresses to some "lady" not in
her 'set," by whose acquaintance the
dress would not be recognized as worn
at second-ha
Those who give parties without hav
ing the wherewithal to give them with
generally hire their silverware, glass
ware, &C.. and thus make quite show
on comparatively small capital. They
can also hire their temporary servants
if they like, and, in fact, the business
of hiring hired servants is developing
into large proportions.
There is good story told Of ayoung
man about town who was recently in
vited to dinner party. He was struck
with the appearance of the butler, n
fine old English-looking fellow, who
told him he had been in the service OF
the family of his entertainer "for thirty
years, man and boy. in the old country
and in the new" Some time after the
young man about town was invited to
dinner party at another house, and 10
and behold he met with the self same
"tine old, English-looking fellow" Of a
butler, who, not recognizing the visitor,
told him in the course of dialogue
into which the visitor inveigled him,
that he had been in the service OF his
present entertainer, man and boy for
thirty years, in the old country and the
new" To tell the truth, the ''tine old,
English looking fellow" of butler was
q first-class fraud, who got five dollars
night for looking pompous and
lying.
Family carriages" are to be procured
IN tOlerably easy terms nOw-a-d avs.