The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1907-07-25
Copyright, by Joseph B. Bowles,)


When in the time of great Eliza
beth the young wife of Lord Compton
requested in her allowance the sum of
Y $4,000 for a string of pearls, she
lasked for less than the grand dame of
To-day thinks of spending for the s2me
ornament. The little circlet of pearls
that the young girl wears about her
throat may have cost, say, only 5000,
lbut the somewhat larger ones, drop
ping just to the waist which her moth
er wears, cost no less than $4,000.
To the political economist this
means a profiigate waste of money tnat
would support many families. But the
Wearer of the pearls claims that their
price is supporting many families al
ready. There is the diver and his
family, she will tell you; the maker
of his boat, his ropes and all his par
aphernalia; the cleanser Of the shells;
the polishers-all 10 be paid and all
with avenues behind them through
which the money passes. Then there
Is the work of the jewellers to be satis-
fed, of the architects and builders
Of the shops in which they find them
selves, of the men and the clerks who
buy and sell; and after that one must
reckon with the thousand and one in
dustries pertaining to the ships which
bring the finished article over seas,
ramifying into countless families; to
say nothing, finally, of the customs du-
ties which the pearls yield and which
assist in carrying on the work of a
great government.
OF course one string of pearls is
but an infnitesimal matter in the
broader view; but it is the many
strings that come into the commercial
value of the fashionable woman; for
she is by herself but a fragment of
society and is of moment only by rea-
son of her numbers. Thus she claims
that these many strings and ropes of
pearls are the means of sending right
eous employment into wide and far
paths of industry; and that while she
might lock their price into bond and
shut it in a safe, conscious that it
represents money in active use, yet
that her string of pearls represents no
less money in no less active use. And
If the affair stops short with the pearls
which are no longer earning, while the
bond will still be at work giving her
yearly revenue, to be again put into
active use, then she claims, in response
to such suggestion, that there are 9th.
er wants than the purely material
ones, and the increment of beauty in
the pearls, the tints and lusters and
environment, are OF as much use and
value in pleasuring the world as the
equivalent in blankets and in beef
might be.
When you see the woman of society
in all her sweet bNtvery, picture in
soft colors and lovely raiment, wheth-
er she herself be beautifur or not, her
jewels, her. lace, her flowers, her shin
ing silks, making her vision of that
beauty which is its own excuse for be-
ing, you hesitate to show her chat
there is any fallacy in her argument.
~ y
But it is not alone in the matter of
her jewels that the woman of society
claims commercial value; they are a
trifle in the sum total, for there is not.
an article of her apparel or sur
roundings that does not merely Gre
ate but stimulate trade. She knows
that as she sweeps by in her grace
and her splendor the onlooker is apt
to think of her as al idle moth tlut.
tering in the sunbeam and of no use
in the world. But without her, she
asks, where would the multitude of
milliners and modistes with all their
dependency of designers and couturiers
and seamstresses, the weavers of deli
cate hosiery and underwear, the
makers of fine boots, fine gloves, fine
everything, the Wholesale people, the
middlemen, the retailers? The silk
worm spins for her, she thinks; for
her the gem is delved from the NINE;
for her the trapper sets his snarss in
the snow, for her the lacemaker
swings her bobbins and sets her wiz
ard needle; for her China sends her
.crepes and India her muslins and
France her velyets; for her slips
cross the sea and caravans the des-
erts and railways the continents, the
whole world tributary to her desires;
and if Tennyson's dream of airsnips
were to come true, pilots of the pur-
pie twilight dropping down with cost
ly bales" the costly bales would be
for her. .5.