The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-04-30
HOW MUCHe

How much money does a woman need? Is a question that some of our contemporaries are discussing with add. without arriving at any definite conclusion. A contemporary tells of a young woman in New York who has been receiving an annual income of thirty thousand dollars for several years. Presumably she has been at and didn't need much money. but now that she has put off childish things and is preparing to take her place in the whirl of life, she has petitioned the another fifteen thousand a year to her allowance. She probably thinks that after being skimped during her callow days with but s30.000 a year to spend on herself, she can get along nicely on $3,750 a month for clothes and other trifles. That is all guess-work, though. If she has not been able to pay for her gowns and other apparel on $2,500 per month, will she not soon decide that an addition of 50 per cent Is still too lit tie? Quoting from one of the New York papers, the name of which we have mislaid, We read:
 Waiving consideration of the prob able circumstance that the mother of this young woman managed to get along in her social sphere very com fortably on a mere fractional part when in her heart whole and fancy .A.A1 NA .IAv lad by the daughter. we come to the more interesting question as to the actual needs of an unmarried woman whose life is cast in what is popularly pro; pro; stratum. It has not been many months since the unmarried daughter of rich New York banker told with apparent pride that she required s5o,0o0 year with which to pay for her gowns" How much more money she required with which to meet her other expenses was not stated, though 1t was "esti- approximated s100.000, which repre- sents the net earning power of quite $3.000.000 safely invested.
 However gratifying it may be to the pride of any father to set aside from his fortune the income of so consider able a part of 1t for the support of a daughter. we question whether in so doing he is making the wisest and best use of his wealth. Womens wants are largely confined to fine raiment, through a fundamental instinct of the sex to please the eyes of others. But there can be no doubt that in spending such vast sums of money on clothes they overshoot the mark at which they aim. An outlay of so many thousands of dollars on gowns and hats and fur bellows must entail upon the purchaser a nerve tiring burden involved in the labor of the selection of materials. the conception of combinations of colors, etc. and in the end result in great physical torture necessitated by the fancy which dictates change of raj ment two or three times every day in order that the complete wardrobe may be displayed in the course of the par ticular season for which 1t was pur- chased.
 Now. we suspect that this expensive habit arises from something of the statesmen who are clamoring for more and larger war vessels-not because we need them, but because we fear some nation will build larger ones than we have. It is not reasonable to suppose that any woman in this country needs to spend so much on herself, or that she will be rendered happier by so do- ing, but in a city like New York there are many women of large wealth and unlimited ambition. Each lives in constant fear that another will wear a finer or more costly gown or other ar ticle of dress or personal adornment. and this fear keeps up the competition on the part of all who belong to. or aspire to. prominent positions in the social life of the city. It Is not that they want so many fine things. or that they need them. but that they don't want another to have something finer, The only satisfaction they get out of 1t, we suspect, is that of outshining all the rest of the set. Whether that is q