The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-11
DRESS BILLS OF
 TWO NATIONS
BASIS OF AMERICAN WOMAN'S
 NAME FOR EXTRAVAGANCE.
She Won't Make One Fine Gown Last Tventy-six Years as her English
 Sister Will-knOws More About Shopping, TOO-Limits to her |.
 Expenditures for Dress.

From the New York Sun.
 Ever since an article appeared in a London newspaper announcing that a plan was under consideration to protect husbands from extravagant wives by Act of Parliament, American women, especially New York women with ex- pensive tastes. have gone around with an air of placid satisfaction. That at titude of the English husband they say, shows clearly enough that when it comes to a question of clothes the American woman does not deserve the reputation which somehow or other clings to her, of being the most extrav- agant in the world. For of course 1t Is the clothes question which has put Englishmep on the defensive.
 The American men, these New York women point out, are not complaining about being innocent victims of a thoughtless extravagance fostered of- ten by tradespeoples and dressmakers," nor are they asking to be protected by the Courts from their own wives.
 The article referred to says that dressmakers and miliners and tradespeoples in general are keenly alive to the necessity of safeguarding their interests and that they, too want to mend the existing law-making husbands responsible for their wives' debts. They say 1t affords many loop nOleS to married WOIntIl lOE lhS CNd- sion of their debts.
 A discussion of the subject over here by tradespeople, by specialists in the art of turning out dreams" and 'crea- tions," whose price runs into the thou sands, and by women of fashion who spend at least half their time on the other side of the Atlantic. fails to prove that as a class fashionable English wo- men are as extravagant in their bills FI. ri nm al aG AFraar NnTn- men of the same social and financial standing. It does not appear either that the New York woman deserves any medals for her economical expendi- lures for clothes. Here, for instance, is what a fashionable New York woman says;
 "The English woman of means spends far more money on her house. her ser wants, her carriages, than the New Yorker, whose fortune is perhaps dou- ble that of the English woman, but with few exceptions the English wo- man doesn't spend a third as much on her clothes as the American.
 There are a few exceptions of course a few exceedingly smart English wo- men who easily keep pace with the most extraVagant Americans-hut 1 am leaving them out of the question. ! remember once. when I was on the other side going about a good deal with an English woman who took three weeks to make up her mind to pay $15 for fancy little meet fichu like one was wearing which she admired. And yet that woman owned no fewer than seven country seats and she was travelling around with five servants and took her own carriage and horses everywhere she went.
 An English woman of the higher class never dreams of riding in bus or trudging around the shops on foot, a 8 even the richest women here will do, and she would almost as soon think of cutting off her hand as to cut down the number of house servants or econ omize on her living expenses; but she will weag the same velvet gown for seventeea years.
 'No. %H not exaggerating in the