The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-05-25

II W. w he he. is , obliged ito to
A may think it
quite enough to be obliged to buy them.
But this is not always true in these
days, as we all know Many woman
now, especially since the new woman
has arrived, buys her own clothes and
thinks she likes it vastly better. 1t
gives her the JOY Of independence. But
whether she buys them or not he will
worry and scold and preach about them
exactly the same 10 the end Of time.
One thing may be questionable man
has any idea how many ages woman's
clothes have been under discussion. He
may suppose for a few hundred years
at most Aristophanes satirized the
fashions of the Athenian women in one
of his best known comedies more than
400 years before the Christian era. And
doubtless scores and scores eff other men
made merry over womens garments
and their prevailing style anterior to
him. Have their jokes and gibes done
any good? Were they ever intended to?
What are laughing and jeering at the
manner of woman's dress but mans
way of getting fun out Of the subject,
though often at the expense of fitness
and delicacy? The sexes are so nearly
free and equal in this country at least,
that they do not need to overlook one
another's slight peculiarities or any of
their extravagances. Both have them
in abundance; each can give and take.
The feminine toilet, however, is, 1
imagine, often unintelligible as mere
matter of fact to one sex not less than
to the other. Women generally adore
the very idea of raiment. 1t appeals to
them abstractly in the most delightful,
intoxicating sense They may not know,
many of them cannot know, what is be.
coming to them, what in the least suits
them, but most of them are more or less
mad for robes, garniture, ornaments
not of any particular kind, mayhap, but
of some kind, of any kind rather than
none To be without establishment in
what they fancy to be proper and best
for them is far worse than to be extinct,
than never to have been born at all
Every feminine creature, savage OF
civilized, repellant or fascinating, de-
formed or symmetrical hungers to be
tricked out and paraded as lovely and
lovable. If not attractive by nature, she
must be made attractive by art and art
Is wholly under the domination, as she
holds, of select attire This article Of
faith is not to be eliminated from any
woman's soul. The palmer she is the
more she puts on, the more conspicuous
she makes herself. The imperfecticns Of
person and manner that might escape
detection in simple, modest garb she
blazons into prominence. Is it not re-
marked everywhere that the ugliest
women emphasize their ugliness by
elaborate overdressing?
We are forever hearing of woman's
intuition, and we are willing to con-
cede that she has good deal-20 times
at least what man has. Since she has
1T, it is very strange that taste is not
more than any other one thing intuitive
But is it? Who owns the hardihood tt
declare as much when he sees the shoals
and shoals of badly accoutered women
IN every leading city in the republic?
1t is far worse in the old world, Paris
excepted of course.
Even in New York, where style is
thought specially to prevail, how many
dowdies one meets on pleasant prom
enade. There may be few of them
compared with other cities, but still
there are more than enough The we'll
dressed woman is the exception even
there, and among women whose incomes
are practically without limit. Simplici-
ty, fitness, taste, harmony, are con.
stantly neglected for effect, elaboration,
expense, novelty. She who wishes to be
observed, to draw admirers by her raj
ment, by her decoration, fails to under
stand the highest art of dress
To be strictly just to woman, her
taste may not be so much to blame as
her enslavement to fashion. She would
not hesitate to sacrifice taste on the al
tar of fashion, and sacrifice it without
the slightest conjunction. Does she
really sacrifice it, or does she consider
fashion superior TO taste? She does not
say So but she certainly acts as if such
were her conviction. Nothing will pre-
vent the average woman from following
fashion under any circumstances. She
takes it for granted primarily-she
must-that whatever is fashionable is
tasteful She honestly believes that she
must not be out of fashion, that it is
her solemn duty to reflect it, whatever
else she may or may not do.
The greatest objection to fashion
merely as fashion is that it makes no
discrimination, that il ignores individ-
ualism. 1t prepares modes for the most
different sorts of people, for blends
and brunettes, for the tall and the short,
for the pale and the ford, for the stout
and the thin. 1t discredits the bulk of
them recklessly, renders them ridic.
ulous. Nevertheless these women cling
with unrelaxable tenacity to their idol,
whose worship is secured
through the mastery and mystery OF
clothes. JUNIUs HENRI BROWNE.