The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-12
WOMEN GROW LARGER
FEW GENERATION FAST 0UTsTRIP-
 PING MAN IN SIZE.
Causes Not Yet Explained, but the In- crease Continues-Ready-Mn Clothes Show Demand for
 Taller Figure.

Chicago Chronicle.
 It Is little curious that the scientists and statisticians are not on hand with records and explanations of a striking fact too patent now to be gainsaid or ignored, namely, the increasing size of the younger generation of women. Evil dences of such increase are to be found everywhere and while the records re- ferred to above are not yet made public there is still testimony of an official sort in the statements of the manufacturers and dealers in women's clothing. By these statements the young women of the moment is taller and of greater weight than she of few years ago and the difference is sufficient to have affected the clothing trade.
 For years" says the manager of a large shop on State Street, the longest skirt carried in our stock-or, so far as I know, In any in this city-measured forty-two inches. If longer were need ed the suit had to be made to order. Now we cary ready made skirts of forty-four inches and we sell 'em too."
 Growth Is SSstemntical.
 Increased stature is, fortunately, not the only gain made by woman. She is heavier and bumper in proportion. Un- derclothes are larger and the signs to be seen in some shops, Extra size un- dergarments," would seem to indicate that the growth continues from day to day. In cases where an exact large size wanted can not be found in stock it can now be made at short notice and small extra cost. Formerly the reply to such a demand used to be: We haven't got it." With this general growth has come also an increase in the size of legs, and hosiery for women of nearly all grades Is now larger and many shops carry what are called "out- sizes" And even feet have kept pace with the change. Regardless of the old fashioned ideas of feminine pull chritude. Dame Nature has decreed that the new woman shall have sufficient of the wherewithal to stand upon and shoes are larger. A fashionable dealer says he carries No. 9's in his regular stock now and that Ts and 8's are call ed for constantly.
 These big new women are all young, and If they were seen only on the stage or in similar places where it Is a case of selection the phenomenon might have no importance. but they are seen everywhere. The current crop of school girls seems larger this year; the newer girls in the shops and the girls who are in their first season of long skirts are larger than those of older date. Whether the increase holds good as well TOT the country crop as TOT that of the city no observer has been found to testify.
 Causes Yet to be Found.
 As for the cause of the growth, all the evidence is yet to be brought for ward. There are suggestions, of course, but they are all of a self-in- terested kind. Thus the physical cul turist smiles in superior way and says there can, of course. be no doubt that the increase is wholly due to wo- mans appearance in the gymnasium and on the athletic field. That's a pretty reasonable argument, too, but the clothing manufacturers and the designers of women's clothes say the change Is due to a more healthy and rational style of dress, which permits of growth and expansion, while the ad- vocate of woman's right to work main- tains stoutly that the entrance of the sex into fields of labor hitherto filled by men is sufficient to account for the matter.
 Incidentally 1t is worth nothing that while the average man Is increasing in size-a fact also attested by the cloth ing trades-he is not keeping pace with women, and there may be something more than pleasant irony in the predic- ton of the pessimist that unless the man of the future shall inherit some thing of physical size and strength from his enormous mother he will be pigmy.