Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1905-12-02


sent from Italy, and our terrapln
caught in Virginia, and our canyasback
ducks shot I'm Chesapeake bay, and our
cranberries grown near Kalamazoo
and our plum pudding and fruit cake,
like the spices Of the Egyptian mum
mics. gathered from everywhere, and
with their indigestible qualities ready
to change us into mummies If we only
give them a big enough chance, while
as a cupola upon this many fioOred or
many coursed Thanksgiving meal we
lay on the big, thick layer of richly
favored homemade ice cream from our
own Jersey COW, without which our
children consider no Thanksgiving din
ner worthy the name.
But | must stop describing the many
different sources from which our
Thanksgiving dinner comes, or else
your hunger for material things Will
crowd out your desire for a spiritual
Thanksgiving. Suffice to say the rail
road track and the ocean greyhound as
well as the wonderful modern reaper
and mower of the farm are spreading
for us Thanksgiving banquet OF
which the Romans and the Greeks and
the Hebrews or even our own ancestors
of a hundred years ago IN the widest
flights Of their imagination could never
conceive or dream. No wonder all the
menus or the bills Of fare Of all our
large city restaurants are printed IN
foreign language Foreign lands con-
tribute a great part to all American
banouets. Thank God, Japan can fur
nish Massachusetts her rice as well as
Louisiana her sugar and China her tea.
A Striking Picture.
But as 90 and study Byam Shaw's
picture and watch that crowded room
Of the British museum l see the men
and women dressed in the most beau
tiful Of garments. OF course these gar
ments are not in up to date fashions.
They are dressed as people dressed
thirty years ago. When we say thirty
years ago we instinctively know that
the STYLES are old fashioned, for when
we realize that every winter our moth
ers and wives and daughters must
have their clothes made over again
completely or else they feel that they
look ridiculously out of style, then we
know that the garments Of a quarter
Of a century ago must be out Of style
indeed. If our wives wore big sleeves
I'm their dresses last winter then they
must wear very small sleeves now. IL
small bonnets were their headgear last
spring. then this fall their hats must
be shaped like a Mexican sombrero,
for thus DEGREES Partisan style. And
the average woman would sooner wear
convicts garb than be out Of style.
But, though Byam Shaw's characters
were dressed in garments a quarter OF
q century old, yet, like our own clothes,
they were all machine made garments.
The linen came from the Belfast mills.
The woods were woven not with Pris-
elias spinning wheel, but by the looms
Of the Manchester factory. The silks
came from the silk mills, the kid gloves
from the kid glove factories. The poke
bonnets were made in the hat factories.
The high silk hats, without which no
British aristocrat feels that he is dress
ed as q gentleman, also came from the
hat factory. And when we 60 through
our own wardrobes we hear machinery
humming one perpetual sentence: Il
made you. | made you. | made you.
| made the cloth of that coat. | made
the cloth of that dress. | made that
underwear. | made those shoes and
those hats and those gloves. | made
YOU. | made YOU" And why has ma
chinery made all our clothes? For two
reasons-frst. because machinery can
make our clothes much cheaper than
the human hand can make them; rea-
son the second, machinery can make
those clothes much better and more
suitable for comfort and ease.
"Oh," says some cynic, 81 do not see
any benefit from machinery in regard
to clothes. True, the sewing machine
is able to make six dresses for my
wife where her grandmother had only
one but the difference between modern
times and ancient times is no difference
! In the amount of work done. My wife
keeps saying always, L must have SIX
dresses so every time l come home
from business she meets me with re-
quest for a new hat or a new coat or
a new dress or a new pair Of evening
slippers, and for my part would like
TO go back to the old times when wo-
| men and men did not think or talk
about dress. This talk about dress
nearly drives me insane" Would you,
my brother, like to go back to the old
ways and not have the comforts OF the
modern machine made garments
Well let me see how 1t fits In your
case.
Old Fashioned Clothes.
You say you like the old handmade
clothes. hard to make, but clothes
which. after they were made, never
wore out. How would you like your
great. grandmother to knit for you q
pair of stockings like those your great
grandfather wore? You say these
modern stockings are always getting
holes in them. Yes, they are, but there
was no danger of your grandfathers
stockings having holes in them. Why
They were made as thick as a bed
quilt. Then the beauty of them was
that like a modern Mother Hubbard
dress, they would continually stretch
and be made to fit any one, or, rather
they would never truly fit any one.
Then you grumble about your wives
and daughters always talking abou
dress. "Oh," you say, 'it is dress
dress, dress from morning until nigh
and from night until morning wheneyel
the women get together" But who il
prouder of his wife when she is dressed