The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-03-27


carries of fashion are very great, al
most innumerable, indeed, but they
seem to have reached their limit wher
some genius of milliner evolved the
500 button gown. The caricatulists
have, of course, found it capital sub
| ject for their pencils, and have depict
ed it in all kinds of situations The
/ ladies seem to have been flabbergast-
ed by the new conner and treat it very
gingerly and not very approvingly.
One of the difficulties of the case lies
in the perpleXity of calculating the
value of the buttons and how to buy
them, by the dozen or by the peck.
Husbands shrink from buttoning them
after the garment has been donned.
So far from a single lady of promi-
niece has been named as a possible
purchaser or as an owner and pros
pective wearer of one, as there is not
the slightest degree of taste in the
idea, only vulgarly exhibition of ex-
travagance. There is much discus
sion as to whether the buttons are to
be bought at the jewelers. or at the
grocer's by the quart.
New restaurants are springing up
downtown following the wake of the
huge buildings, which bring into one
skyscraper more customers for res
taurants than formerly was to be
found on many blocks. Each one of
these has a huge restaurant of it's
own, but around them are cropping
up new lunch-rooms and full blown
restaurants, and others are charging.
None other like Rector's newly pro-
jected palace has been announced, but
from the moderately expensive to the
cheap places they are appearing all
over downtown. The wonder is, where
do the new tenants of the skyscrapers
come from? OF course when a rail
road company puts its whole force in
four floors, it helps wonderfully in
filling up; but there is a vast army
of firms that have left other quarters
for more imposing apartments in the
great buildings. Yet with all the
building craze, the wants of small
dealers have been utterly neglected
In none of the new buildings have the
needs of the business men of small
means been considered. In former
times a dealer of limited means could
get good office for $40 month. That
class are kept in the old buildings,
some of which are nearly ready to
drop down into piles of debris. One
instance of the enterprise as exhib-
tied by the catering of business is
shown in the case of a restaurant on
Nassau street, which has been estab-
lished less than a year. 1t is about
300 feet deep, and it has contracted
for the next room in the building. The
wall is a heavy one, yet the contractor
| has engaged to take down that wall.
| beginning on Saturday night, and put
ting the restauranteur in possession,
everything shipshape and ready for
business on the succeeding Monday
morning.
A flutter of excitement prevailed for
| some days in the ranks of the restaur-
ants and lunchrooms of a certain dis
trict, over report that members of
the Standard Oil clique had bought
shares of stock in Child's system, and
had raised the Mattresses wages %
so a week, but it's truth could not be
established. In a certain restaurant
of considerable pretensions and long
established, the mattresses get 81 a
day. Their tips are generous, and
their living depends upon them. Each
waitress in a room where nine are en-
ployed has to pay out of her tips three
boys each so cents a week for filling
the water pitchers and taking away
the dishes. If the waitress is away
of an evening. her substitute gets her