The semi-weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1890-1891, 1890-11-01
DREssMAKERs' BILLS.


Lucky the woman who has the receipt
ed bill for her new autumn gown.
The McKinly bill will make a mighty
difference in the SIZE of dress bills.
Here is an illustration:
A few days ago a clever woman, who
Is good at dressmaking, could get herself
up u very pretty, stylish, serviceable
gown for something like $40. She could
make a neat, comfortable jacket for about
10. Then she could make a becoming
hat for $2.75 or 50. Buy a pair of tan
colored gloves for rs cents, would look
nearly as we'll as a 81 pair, and start out
serenely conscious of looking neatly and
becomingly attirsd.
OF course this is reckoning from a very
humble point of view, but that is the
point of view of the woman who is most
interested in the tariff law-the woman
who earns her W living, and cannot af-
ford to indulge in the pomps and vanities
to any great extent. Yet she is usually a
self-respecting woman, who takes a good
honest pride in her appearance and is
willing to make a great many small sac
riices in order to look we'll dressed.
LOOK OVEN THE GUR
She does not buy a gown without a
great many qualms as to its variability
and its becoming qualities. She often
chooses her bit of material in a shop
window, and then goes to work to save
every spare cent she has until she can
get enough together to buy it. An adj
vance IN price is a very serious matter
to her, and it often means wearing her
shabby gown a few weeks longer until
she a hoard up the extra "only a few
cents a yard" as the clerk %disdainfully
remarks. But about the ten-dollar gown.
Here it is:
She could get ten yards of a quiet
check or Il PLAIN, serviceable color in a
pliable stuff, with at least enough wool
in it to make it soft and nice, for 80 cents
a yard. Her Innings would cost her $2.1O;
braid, twist, silk, thread and buttons
would come to 1926, if she were careful.
That Is, If she got the good imported lin
ings, which she was sure to do If she was
a sensible, provident woman, for the thin,
"sleezy" Innings are almost worse than
nothing at all, the pull out of shape SO
outrageously. Then the cloth for her
Jacket would come to So, and some astra-
chan to trim would be $1.05; Innings
twist, ETC., ~.
II she gets that gown and jacket under
the new laws DEGREES she will pay &C
cents a yard for her dress materials, 81
cents II yard for her Innings, and
HER FINDINGS
will come to $3.50. Then the trimming
for her jacket will cost $40. That
makes her outfit come to just $3.50 more
than 1t did before. Then the velvet for
her hat will cost her nearly twice as
much as before, and as for gloves, she
will find it very hard to get a respectable
pair under 81 or $1.25.
Take it In a different class of goods
and the result is the same, only more so.
Linen lawn, which always looks so fresh
and neat for Homework, will be advanc-
cd to just double its usual price, and &C
will printed lawns. There is no material
known which wears SO we'll, and posi-
lively refuses to get torn or mussed OF
crumpled under the most adverse cir
c~umstances, as black alpaca. They cal
it b%rilllantine now, but it's the same iron
fabric as when it was known by its old
fashioned name. No woman who works
for a living, and who is out in the dus
much, can do without IN alpaca, yet this
material is going up f%rightfully. 1t hai
always been very much more expensive
here than IN any other country on account
of the already excessive duty. What II
will be now no one has yet figured out.
D~ressmakers' bills have been the
stumbling block in the way of tasteful
dressing for poor women for 10! these
many years. Now that materials have
risen, the outlook is doubly discouragine
to the woman who lives in the work a
day world.
If this interesting state of affairs is no
to your liking, vote for W. W. Dixon fol
congress.