The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-16
Again that sinking feeling.

Ihank you! with chastened grdI-
tude.
Yes, just simple little shirt waist
a stock, a neat belt. a plain hat and
a short skirt. It's fine! So trim and
s'mple!"
Had he not been absorbed in his own
enthusiasm he must have seen that
each item he enumerated caused me
a pang of keen anguish, and that was
with difficulty avoiding cOntortions
which might cause the bystanders TO
send in rush order for an ambulance
A simple little shirt waist!
To be the wearer of one is to bear
joy and anguish like unto those known
TO the mother of a son
True, it is useful, but first get your
shirt waist.
Spend hours and all your money and
your gray matter on the alluring mer-
Cerized stuffs displayed by wicked and
designing shopkeepers. Then, with fraz-
zled nerves, seek a dressmaker. Your
beautiful goods, for which you went
without meals and perilled your immor-
tai soul. are cut with the expanding
generosity known only to those VINO
handle the possessions of others, and
the result is an example of the Won
drous power of human minds to diff
fer
Not in any one place does the thing
fit! The neck is too large. the arm
holes too small, the waist too short. the
sleeves too long. the front draws to
the back, the back leaps up over the
front, and the curse of Eve is upon
you!
Never again, never again! l will go
to a tailor the next time and pay his
price,"
That majestic being disdainfully takes
your trembling little order for half
dozen at So per, and drawls over his
shoulder to one of his minions:
Send up dem tree dozent up to Mrs.
Billions, on F'ft aVana. and make out
de bill for toity-nine dollars apiece. J"
just to let you realize your insignia
canoe.
Then, having prudently placed your
order in February, to avoid the spring
rush, you get your waists in the lat
ter part of August. Yes, you admit.
the rush has been avoided. Meantime,
you have subsisted on a shirt waist
and half. left over from some of last
seasons misfits
Stocks promised relief from the old
decapitation machines called linen col
lars, which branded the red ring OF
their butchery ON your once snowy
flesh. The woman with the unswanlike
neck sang paean of joy.
Now, indeed, shall / have comfort"
Not so.
Stocks have but proved further de-
vices of Satan. Never, by any chance,
does one fit. 1t is too high in front.
too low in the back. 1t wrinkles. it
draws, it pulls. it turns over, it makes
your pretty neck assume bovine pro-
portions and reminds you of the man
who asked the haberdasher for a larger
collar.
These are the largest we have, sir.
You will find larger ones next door,"
Next door was a harness shop.
A neat belt! Does man know the
hours of toll of wrath of detection, of
misplaced confidence, that the neat
belt has cost? He does not. What
recks he that the skirt and the shirt
waist must center on hair line? What
knows he of the sad parting of the
affectionate hook and eye; of the sub
tie sin of trusting too fondly the de-
lusive snap fastener; of trembling dig
its torn by the claws of the Only Per-
lection Eaver-let-go Shirt Waist and
Skirt Fastener; of strings, bands, pins
and other graceless and hell-sent de-
vices that must combine to produce
that simple and neat appearance so
calmly approved by the memorable mas
culine mind?
A plain hiatt
Oh, Mother Evel Was ut for this you
wove raiment of the glistenng fig leaf!
When a woman wears a plain hat Sshe
feels that she has indeed abandoned
all hope. in this world and the next.
If she yields to the fatal call of duty,
and with despairing wrath in her soul
buys a hat which will stand eight
changes of weather in as many hours,
she at least fondly hopes against hope
that it may not be without some YES
tige of becomingness; that somewhere
in curve of the brim. the twist of a
scarf or the angle of a quill there may
Turk a suggestion of the coquettish
grace for which she would cheerful1y
barter her birthright and all her gods:
and then to know-to be told, with
brutal masculine unconsciousness-th
it suggests naught but what 1t is
plain!
1t is enough to cause the stanchest
feminine to flee to a table dhote and
drown her sorrows in red ink!
Even deeper than the sword thrust
of the plain hat is the wound inflicted
by the short skirt.
Oh, yes 1 know, know. So clean
ly and sensible. That's what l am
inelegant, so lacking in allurement, so
unsubtle, so typical of all the dis
agreeable virtues! With wrath sees
the tall, slim girl herself thereby made
into a natty imitation of Frank
furter, and with woe beholds she of
the embonpoint herself therein sug-
costing naught but one OF Grandmam-
mas feather holsters, with that neat
belt surrounding midway
To he dressed for business. to don
this simple garb, means to rise at dawn,
to pin. to buckle. to strap, to adjust
to curse, TO abandon faith, hope and
charitY
Not till the day is over and the
sweet dusk enwraps. may the business
woman come into her kingdom. Then.
If fate is kind, the bachelor maid may
take vengeance on duty in mad delight
of trailing gowns fluffy hair, raptur-
ously free neck, snowy shoulders. tin
lest of slippers, with absurd heels and
ravishments of lingerie. Thus may she
gain courage to face again the day Of
shlrt-waist wrath.