The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-17

standing whatever. This meant the arraying of every woman. no matter what her age or health might be. and in the strictest privacy of the family circle, in a iow-necked gown for din- ner The gown. of course. was not fresh---it would take the income of Rothschi1d 70 keep a family of girls In evening gowns for everyday wear. The spectacle, therefore, of an Enghsh family dinner was weird and unearth- ly--the seedy and frazzied skirts. the shabby bodices--the whole a ghastly travestyI on full dress. The results to health. too, were something frightfuL English houses are badly heated. the climate Is damp and trying and rheu- matfsm and consumption stalked in the train of the dressing for dinner habit. But the American custom of deserving low gowns for ceremonious occasions iss founded on good taste, and once adopted 1t will not be laid aside.
 s.-. --
 In France and Italy the influence of the American woman is not so obvious as in England. but it is there. The custom of girls going out alone Is year iy making headway. Formerly 1t was
 not safe for girl to venture alone on | the streets in any French of Italian | city. She would be understood as in- viting insult But that is now thing of the past. Frenchmen and Italians
 are accustomed to seeing well dressed
 girls walking alone. and no longer i dream that this solitariness means any
 thing except that the girl finds com | panion unnecessary. In Paris girls or
 the upper middle class think nothing now of mounting an omnibus alone.
 They are certain to find an English or
 American women in the omnibus who is going somewhere unattended and in
 perfect safety. In the higher classes
 the. French young person is still strict
 iy chaperoned. but by no means to the
 same degree as formerly. One no long
 CT hears a French girl say to her
 mother as they sit in the park: Mama, | may I go and sit by papa? She not
 only goes and sits by papa, but goes
 out with him--to their mutual enjoy
 ment. for it must be rem embered that
 in no other country on earth is the tie
 of parents and children so strong and
 so tender as in France.
 | It is in Germany, however, that the l change is most marked. Jerome K
 Jerome. a very close observer, says the
 bicycle did 1t. He declares that for
 merly no German girl who wished or expected to be married would have been over the face of creation with their bi-
 cycles. The great number of American l girl students in the smaller German | towns has had a marvellous effect upon | German women. Seeing the free, un-
 trammeled lives these young girls led,
 and noticing they rarely came to grief. the German girls quietly fell into the American way. The German girl is al-
 most invariably well educated and re- l fective. She is far more progressive | than the German man. She seems to have thoroughly wearied of the useless and endless drudgery which has here- tofore been the rule In the German ousehold-useless, because all German ! households are very simply conducted | Emperor Williams idea that women need the four Ks is being disproved un-
 der his imperial nose. The fame of the | courtesy the chivairy of the American | man. the generous complaisance of the American husband. has spread like wildfro in Germany.
 America is recognized as the Heaven l for: wontfn---or, as the Irishman put it | in his letter to his friend in Cork: This is mighty good country. Mike, for women and cows; and d mighty bad | country for men and horses"