The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-07-22

l. High and Frenchy. .. Medium and popular
4 Low and sturdy.
And there are others who declare with
Just as much calmness and conviction
that the commonsense shoe has placed
its heel on the neck Of all other styles;
that the corset Is going the way of the
hoopskirt, aud that the combination suit
ard the divided skirt having combined
their forces are entering upon an undi-
Vided field of feminine favor.
You can take whichever one Of these
views you prefer, or you can hold each
one on alternate weeks. The newspaper
reader is pretty sure to see one or the
other triUmphantly advanced about that
often. But there is one safe rule of Gre
dence for all articles Of this character
If they contain merely assertion, with
no facts gathered together to back the
assertion, they prove " one thing-that
the writer wears the bind Of clothing
whose rapid progress or whose firm hold
on feminine affection she champions.
For myself, 1 have been particularly
amused and sometimes mystifed by the
frequency and contradictory character
Of these articles on the subject of shoes.
If one week l read an article which con-
WINGED me that the feminine world was
lettering around on heels Of the highest
and Frenchiest description, and that
nothing le6s than the stake could induce
It to lay them aside, the next week l
would be forced to believe just as firmly
that the French heels were q thing of the
~ II
about in shoes whose sOles and heels
were of almost equal thickness. So one
day before the summer exodus began |
started out to do little census taking
and get at the truth Of the matter. l
wanted to find out just what kind of
shoes women really are wearing.
It was a Saturday afternoon, when the
fashionable part Of Broadway was
crowded with well dressed women, and
a brisk breeze whisked its way down the
street and aided my Investigations.
From Broadway l passed up Fifth ave-
nue. through the region of the city's most
exclusive wealth and fashion. From
Fourteenth street up to Sixtieth count
ed and classified all the feminine heels
They fell easily into three distinct classes
after the manner of the accompanying
illustrations-very low, medium and
very high. And OUT Of every hundred heels
there were on an average about ten very
high ones, thirty very low and sixty me-
dunn. The figures are roughly stated,
but they are very near the percentage
developed by the count.
Exception upper Fifth avenue, where
the possessors of the heels belonged to
that classrwhoSe attire is always reckon
ed as the very glass Of fashion, the me-
dium heel was the fayorite. But there
the Newsstand SturdieSt of heels and the
broadest and thickest of soles were the
rule. For dozen blocks on this upper
Fifth avenue only two pairs of French
heels were seen and they were both on
the feet of nurse maids.
The medium heel passed through quite
a variety of form, sometimes being so
low and so upright of bearing as to ap-
ppoach very near the common sense
type, and soR1stimes being so tall and so
slanted that it neared the other extreme.
1t was noticeable, though, that a ma
joritY of these heels showed the former
tendency. Still another fact my love of
candor compels me to chronicle, and that
is that about half the women who wore
high heels hmped and half the remain
der, though they walked firmly, wore
panied and preocouPied looks upon their
faces.
After that tour of investigation l de-
cided that French heels, for street wear
at least, are waning. The increased
number of low heeled and broad soled
shoes that appears in nearly all the shops