Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-09-30
EQUALITY IN DRESS.
The Working Girl May Follow tho Fash
Ions ms Well ms tho Heiress.

Ino WOrRtuk Otrh uhuy EohoW sho ~eoAA-
Ions AS Well rs tho Heiress.
One of the greatest drawbacks to
country life is popularity supposed to
be the lack of shopping facilities. Tho
country maid is supposed 70 depend on
an exceedingly limited supply OF dry
goods in the country store for which
she has to pay an exorbitant price,
and looks with envy on the bargain"
advertisements of the city shops.
There is great deal more talk than
truth in all this matter. The dowdily
dressed country girl is fast becoming
o thing of the past. The facility with
which country customers reach the
great emporiums of trade through the
sample departments and by the express
companies and package departments of
the post office leaves very little to be
desired.
1t is possible that the shopper may
see more If she goes personally to the
great city, but she is likely to be con-
fused by the very wealth Of her oppor-
tunities, and make no better choice.
The great advantage in fashion news
papers. Us well as the excellent cut
patterns which are daily improving,
have made it possible for the country
girl to be as neatly, and at the same
time as stylishly, dressed as her city
cousin. Paris and London have no
sooner got out their exclusive styles
than they are duplicated in this coun-
try by both the enterprising tradesman
and the pattern-maller. Madame with
her millions is able to enjoy her exclu-
sive gowns in the latest Partisan mode
but an hour before they are hnown on
vale and mountain, and thus the most
powerful agent in the building up of
class is broken down, and true repub-
licanism made possible, where the wee
maiden of the forest or valley need
wear no longer the badge of peasant
dress, but is as well gowned as her
taste and refinement can make her.
The suitable materials for woman's
dress for ordinary occasions are, thanks
to the enterprise of American manu-
facturers, brought to so low price
and in such tasteful design, that the
most modest working girl may be us
attractively robed us the richest woman
of the land, for good taste excludes
over-claboration in the dress of the lat
ter, while low prices have brought the
best of the simpler materials in the
reach of the former, and thus made an
advance toward that universal sister
hood of which the dress is the outward
token. Sheer as one may please at the
power of clothes, yet the restricted garb
of the peasant was one Of the greatest
forces of the feudal ages-a force
recognized by certain materials in
wearing apparel being prohibited to
any but the king and the noble. With
the great mass of the ignorant even yet
dress makes the man; the want of it
the fellow. In the olden times. when
it required wealth to dress neatly and
well, there was some excuse for the
poets sneer at Leather and prunella,"
but to-day, wher neat clothes are in
the reach of every one, there is nc ex-
cuse for any individual appearing un-
worthily CARRIED. Neat, refined. and
even stylish dress, is within the reach
of every one. The ten-cent gingham,
trimmed with bands of white braid. or
even with white embroidery, may be
fully as effective and as neatly made as
the Partisan gingham from the hands
of the French modiste, which may cost
twenty-five times as much.
The pretty cheviots which the work.
ing girl makes up for herself is in every
way as tasteful and neat a gown rs
that her own sister may make in the
fashionable dressmaker's shop for the
millionaire's wife. There may be q
difference in the quality of the cloth
and the Innings, but this is not percep.
tib!e to the casual observer. Every
day the cheapncss OF material is in.
creasing. and strain though we may
after exclusive novelties. the time is
fast coming when such things will be
'well-nigh iinp"ssible.-N. Y. Tribune