The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-01
Paffi's Dazzling Wardrobe
 For Her American Tour.

The Paris made dresses that Madame
 Adelina Patti will wear during her
 forthcoming tour of the country are
 fast arriving at the port of New
 York, where they are being held at the
 custom house until her arrival Twenty
 five came last week and ten got here on Wednesday. When the great singer ar rives on Saturday week she will have to
 make a formal affidavit that these dresses | are intended for tools of trade" and they will be admitted free of duty on her un- | dertaking that they shall leave the coun- | try within six months after their impor- | tation. This can easily be done, as they win be shipped back in small patches all
 most as soon as used
 As already stated. Madame Patti will
 wear a new dress for every concert she
 gives in the United States, making sixty in all. This may seem a large, and to some an unnecessary expense. but not so for besides exciting public interest and | curiosity the cost of them all can be
 paid out of a little more than the pro-
 ceeds of two concerts, allowing that these
 dresses will cost from twelve to fourteen 1 thousand dollars.
 It has been suggested to MT. Grau that
 he should prevail on Madame Patti when
 she comes to Birmingham to give pub
 lie exhibition of the whole of the dresses l together. Without doubt this would prove | very interesting to her women admirers, l but 1t is very improbable that the diva will accept the suggestion, she will l certainly not care to unpack this immense amount of material with only the task l before her of packing it all up again for 1 the trip. They will probably be stored | just as they arrive in some New York
 warehouse and be sent on to wherever
 she may be singing in patches of five. To carry them all at once would need the services of almost an entire baggage | car, and so long as she has five ahead, | which would mean two weeks of concerts, | she could rest easy as to the constant sup ply.
 | That the dresses are all very beautiful l we have evidence in recently published description of them that came from a well | known writer who saw them all in Paris. They have also been graded according to climate; the dresses to be worn in the
 Tar south are very different in texture and weight from those that will be donned in the extreme north, and so forth. More than half the dresses Madame Patti has not even seen herself, though she has carefully gone over every design. They all come from one establishment in Paris.
 an establishment of which she has been
 customer for more than thirty years. Mir Robert Grau has received letter from a Mrs. Leila Morenz, which is some-
 what peculiar. and worth publication l It runs as follows:
 | Dear MT. Grau:
 "I have long been an ardent admirer of | Madame Patti, as a singer and as wo-
 man. I am additionally interested, being a
 woman myself, in the accounts I have read of her intention to wear a new Paris l gown at every one of her concerts in Am | erica, and, being entirely at liberty to | do what I please, l have made up my
 mind that in addition to hearing the great l singers last concerts in America, l am desirous of gratifying my feminine curi-
 osity for new confections In dress I 1 write to ask if you could let me have a | seat in the third row. center aisle. if pos- sible, for every concert that Madame 1 Patti will give In America.
 | "I see that her trip involves no great l discomfort in travelling, and l fancy that | it would prove interesting to me as well | as to her. I must see every one of those | dresses. Very sincerely, | LEILA MORENZ." | Mir Robert Grau. In obedience to this
 somewhat enthusiastic desire of Mrs. Mo-
 renz, is making arrangements with all the | local managers of the Patti tour that this | particular seat shall be reserved for her l everywhere; in other words, that 1t shall | not be sold beforehand. It only involves | the making out of an order for each | place. and this will be sent to the lady in l question.
 | It Is something of a reminder of the
 old story of Eugene Sue, "The Wandering | Jew" in which man followed Goliath,
 the lion tanner, in the hope of some day | seeing him eaten up-being in at the
 death. as it were, though Mrs. Morenz' s | travels will be based on a very different I theory.