The sun., 1906-02-18

by the year to do nothing but keep the ma
| chimes In order.
-It's all nonsense to say America hasn't
a leisure class. That statement may nave
held good twenty-five years ago; II IL nov
true now. This company has been dealing
| with New York's wealthy class for that many
years. and have noticed in that lime the
rapid multiplication OF men OF almost
entire leisure, by which mean men who
| drop in between II and ~ Of a morning.
20 away and reappear again about O'CLOCK
or little later.
They have been downtown meanwhile
to look in at the Stock Exchange or attend
a board meeting or something like that
which can scarcely be called hard work.
| These men. or most Of them have at least
! three automobiesa four cylinder car
| closed car for evening use and in bad
weather and runabout. Frequently
fourth car, sma Her than the first mentioned.
brougham and hanson are added to
, their automobile outfit.
.The amount OF money these men spend
, yearly for automobiles is problematical.
No one knows but themselves. What most
OF them demand is speed, consequently they
will pay almost any price for new car pro-
Nlueu IL goes IdSttT tIdH Illt btltI IIidhc"'
Although 1900 or 5000 will buy first
class motor car. New York men will pay
as high as $40, 900 for an imported machine
guaranteed to go like creased lightning.
THE cost of keeping four or five motor
cars is more than a novice would imagine
Storage is $25 or $50 a month for each car.
exclusive Of feeding the ecar-furnshing the
motive power. Two chauffeurs, at least,
at 500 a month each, are needed, and the
bills for repairs may reach several thou
sands year
AUTOMOBILE ACCESSORIES COST MORE.
"Let the pole of truck or a carriage
run into the back of closed car and re-
pairs may cost s.. 900. A collision in front
is pretty sure to mean at least $50. Add
to this the expense of entering cars in race, +,
which is rhe fad of the day.
mo one can say how much money the
Vanderbilt boys have sunk in buying auto
mobiles and racing them. Take men like
Fred Bourne, who has built private ga
rage OF brick and stone on expensive city
lots near the Park, and John Jacob Astor,
and SIS, 900 is a conservative figure to give
when estimating the amount Of money
spent every year for automobiles. Mr..
Astor has workshop down in Centre street.
He experiments all the time with motors Of
all sorts; and there ia Cornelius Vanderbilt,
too who spends hours at time working
away at motors in his own workshop.
"The fittings, furnishings trimmings Of
automobiles get more elaborate and hand
somer every day. but they don't begin to
keep pace with the splendor Of the fur
coats and gowns and jewels of the women
who come here to look at automobiles and
who own some OF those stored in the ga
rage. They make me open my eyes IN
mazement, and am not easily amazed.
Il have never before seen anything like
the fur garments worn commonly by nearly
every woman who comes in and the cost
OF which. imagine, would make the price
OF an ordinary automobile seem like 80
cents. There has been a wonderful change
in the style and richness of woman's cloth
ing even since the bicycle craze of ten or
dozen years ago, when fashionable women
by droves used to come to Ills for machine.
It e all in keeping, suppose. with the grow
ing proportions of our leisure class"
INCREASED COST OF DRESS.
When one OF the so called smart set was
asked for an opinion as to the relative
cost OF fashionable woman's wardrobe
now and score of years back, she answered
reminiscently
Strange that question should be put to
me. 1t was exactly twenty years ago
that one day when in a small company
OF friends l asked an older woman, who
! was looked up to as an authority in dress.
how much money she thought woman
in fashionable society need spend in order
to be suitably gowned. and | remember
| her answer was that. taking one year
! with another she could manage well on
| 81 900 per annum.
"On another occasion about ten years
ago the same question came upat luncheon,
| and one of the guests remarked that $1,000
| a year was all that fashionable woman
need spend for wearing apparel Now
| here s the question again, when II Is harder
| than ever to answer.
"In fact it is impossible to answer that
| quest ion offhand, for the reason that in these
days it is not so much question Of what
a woman needs to spend as of what she
| thinks she needs to spend. In other words,
| the attitude of most society women now is
| not how much they can save on clothes or
the least sum with which they can manage
to present a suitable appearance, but how
much money they can get hold Of to spend
on their wardrobe.
1T is true that ten years go some women
did make quite an elegant appearance on
s. 900 a year. To-day society woman :
lingerie. negligees and slippers alone cost
that much often.
This may not be right. | am not de-
Tending it, l frankly admit that New York
society women are getting to be outrage
ously extravagant. At the same time they
need ten times as many clothes as their
grandmothers needed, for the reason that
they entertain continuously and are on
dress parade all the time.
Besides this, the standard OF elegance in
dress has gone up tremendously. Who
considers a black silk dress elegant now?
No one not even a housekeeper. One
elegant costume and few quite plain ones
we're considered sufficient for fashionable
woman of olden times, whereas now
fashionable gowns must all be elegant and
they must include costumes suitable for
morning, afternoon, evening, for formal
and informal occasions.
Instead Of woman having one gown
suitable for dinners and the opera, she must