The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-24
Price SO Gents.

men of this kind. A female stranger can have three recommendations to their society-to play . good game of bridge" to know c good recipe for losing weight and to have discovered a new dresSmaker No women in the world are more pre- occupied with their clothes. They per petually talk about them. With some it has assumed the expressing proportions of a fixed idea. You can work the con- veRsation round on Chinsse music and the Bacon-s Shakespeare controversy and in . few skilifully engineered sentences they will switch 1t back onto the advant- age of shirsing oyer plating and the en- during beauties of chiffon velvet. <E ,
 Talk Only of Style.
 It Is hardly necessary to say that their society Is not intensely interesting unless you happen to have the same bee in your bonnet. If you at the moment are wondering whether shirring or plating will make you look smaller round the hips, then seek their company, for they win know all about 1t. and their dictum will have the value of expert opinion. often wonder what they talk about to men. There are men who appear to take an interest in such esoteric subjects as the proper trimming for skirts and the | cut of bodices, but they are scarce-nOt ! half enough of them to so round among the ladies whose interests are bounded on the north by the dressmalxer and the south by the mIlliner. One of them sat near me at Q dinner the other evening and she entertained the man beside her with long ana exhaustive account of her system of dieting. It was evidently a good system for she was as "thin as a June shad," as the fishermen say.
 The younger girls and even, the little ones brought up in this atmosphere de- velop exactly the same mental trend. The children of such households talk knowing Iiy of styles and costumes long before they are in their teens. It is a most unfortu- nate thing. as they are constantly bright and promising and in different surround tingg would grow up intelligent and charm ling women. But as they hear nothing else talked about they come to think their clothes are the most important feature of their lives.
 Ohildren Have the Mania.
 I was waiting the other afternoon at a friends house for the chatelatne to come downstairs. Her little girl, F years old. iappsared upon the scene, and, sitting coz lily down beside me on the sofa, began Ito examine my costume with an exploring Ieye that I found quite disconcerting. itrisd to engage her fin diverting conver- IsatIon, but she was not interested. After Hooking me carefully over she suddenly nestled aHectionately nearer ana said: Don't you just adore little tucks?"
 Ths best thing that could have happened to these people is loss of money. They were losing their heads. Luxury was eat ing into the better part of them like an acid. Not that they have had the sort of ''spslJ" which makes 1t necessary for them to Ego west and start afresh. They are stdl in their brown-stone fronts. with a Fetinu0 of well-trained servants and long list of invitations for the Christmas season. But there has been a sudden check in the gorge of money-getting, and a corresponding pullup in the orgie of money-spending. Especially in the mat ter of dress has there been necessity to consider the dollar, The craze for ex- pensive clothes has had to be conquered anyway, for a time. Instead of Russian eabies they buy serviceable Persian lamb; the real lace that didn't show has been replaced by good limitations. They com plain as much about these deprivations as an east side family might if they had to live on lentils and have meat only once week. But, after all, the point of view is purely a matter of what one has been accustomed to.