The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-11-14
AMERICAN WOMEN PRE-EM1NENr.
The Best Dressed, the Best Looking and
the Most Stylish.
.om the St I.onis Glohe-Demonr

From the st. Louis -Democrat)
American women are accustomed tx
being called the best dressed women il
the world, and in certain way and to {
certain extent this is correct. They have
more money and more leisure than the
women Of any country in the world.
more freedom in the use of both, and,
not being SO much hampered by circum.
stances and traditions, they can draw
from all sources and collect in the sum
total of their dress something of all other
women's best.
In other countries-though there is
no longer in "society" the distinction
and division created by purely national
costume-there are differences quite per-
ceptible to trained eyes, which show
both the influence of temperament and
the controlling nature of circumstance.
The German women, for example, have
an exquisite perception of color. They
excel in color combination. They pro-
duce the loveliest embroidery in colors
upon linens and other fabrics for house
hold uses; but they do not put it into
their dress-thst is, there is nothing OF
it seen in the ordinary dress of the mass
es. There are two reasons for this: One
is their poverty, the other public
opinion which condemns the working
woman if she shows any evidence Of
willingness to attract attention by the
gaiety of her attire. If she is above the
rank of the peasant, and must be seen
upon the streets or in public in her efforts
to earn her daily bread, her dress must
be black, or absolutely neutral, to pre-
serve herself from remark, or at least
from the inference that she is frivolous.
The workingwomen of France are
bound in very much the same way; but
they have acquired more pecuniary ill.,
dependence; they control almost all the
retail business of the country, and if
they had the taste for which they receive
the credit, would have worked out
beautiful ideas. But at this moment
France is very much like America; it
receives its ideas second hand, and only
imposes certain sumptuary laws through
the wickcdness of its men, who procure
whatever is made attractive to their eyes
and imagination. In England it is
different. Englishwomen are type by
themselves, and with the energy of the
Saxon and the tenacity of the Briton
originate ideas and create conditions
which influence the rest of the world.
The American woman is French and
English when she is not wholly Irish or
Ge, man, while the Austrian woman Is
French and German, and in her inde-
peudence end activity are constant re-
minder of the American. But the
American women has little of all in her
dress. She will wear lace like the
Austrian, practice walking dress like
the Englishwoman, all the draperies and
caprices of the French demimonde,
blends colors like an Oriental, and loves
fur like a Russian. Sooner or later,
moreover, she gratifies her tastes. The
girl who dreamed dreams in a cotton
sun bonnet, wears $4,000 worth of lace
i'll London drawing room, where, as
al American, she is the equivalent OF q
duchess. The woman who spent half
her life cooking upon a rickety stove IN
= log cabin is serene cid lady in her
later years, who takes her niece to Europe
aad wears sealskin coats and India shswls
worth small fortune.