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A TALK ABOUT CHEAP DRESS

Mrs. Peattie Tells the Girls How to Gaib Themselves Tustily and Economically.
Dress Reform and Those Who Eduate It- A Paper Read to the Young Women's Christian association- and the girls who attend the Noon Day Real.
One of the fundamental differences between civilization and savagery, is that in savagery a person is not obliged to wear any more clothes than conduces to comfort, whereas in civilization, a person is under obligations to make himself more or less uncomfortable by the wearing of many, and elaborate garments. In fact, to such a large extent is artificially confounded with civilization, that it is almost safe to say, the more uncomfortable a person's clothes feel, the more highly civilized he is. To be sure, it does occasionally occur to some of us a better and homester civilization might teach us to be at once comfortable and fashionable, but after experimenting a while with Greek drapenses and empire robes, we return to Demorest and the fashionable book, and to all the discomforts of the age, with meekness of spirit.
The pleasantry of the old world, shut in their quiet valleys, or wailed in their mountain towas, are not susceptible to the fashious, but have come, instead, to adopt a national dress, which descends from mother to daughter, and which is made of materials that outlast two generations. The Breton woman would take shame to herself as a spend thrift if she got a new gala gown every year. She is quite content with her now kerchief, and an ocassional addition to her silver ornaments, and would look with disdain on the girl who found it necessary to change even the fashions of her jewelry. as one who might well expect, and would certaintly deserve, to come to want in her old age. However, little by little, these marvelous old costumes of Europe are disappearing as the railways make their way among the quiet folk. and the women from the cities incite the gentle peasants to a futile rivalry. For, indeed, it is most futile. The peasant, used to finding a sort of uniform prescribed for every occasion, and to having costumes provided which are the cumulative result of the exercise of taste for centuries, has no idea how to exercise her individual taste. She has been so long provided with ideas, finding them ready made to her hand, that when once she rejects these old ideas she is singularly devoid of original ones. She has hitherto had a certain kind of a garment for christening, for marrying, for burying, for working and for dancing. Let her put aside these appropriate and characteristic garments, and she will produce but a hideous caricature of the prevailing fashions. You have, all of you, for example, noticed some brown-faced bohemian woman on our streets. About her round, comely face will be a kerchief of orange dud purple. Her purple skirt had crimson waist, her shawl of wonderful weave and many colors, her stone ankles with their purple stockings, her strong-shoes, and her awkward but splendidly powerful stride, make her a remarkable figure. Her clothing is appropriate. It is harmonious to herself. She and the clothes are in accord, and she makes a pleasant sight to the eye. But wait a few weeks. She will have observed, and she will have visited the bargain stores. And what is the result? Shoes which have destroyed the strength of her old gait, without giving her any of the grace of movement which the women possess whom she would faith imitate, a hat of many colors, which will not stay on straight, and which perches above her smoothly braided hair in a ridiculous fashion; an ill-fitting cloak which she does not know how to wear; and absurdly made dress which draggles in the dirt. From being a peculiar but appropriately dressed woman, she has become a guy and a stoven. She has, in short, emerged from the comforts of semi civilization into the discomforts of civilization, without acquiring any of the style which is the mitigating circumstance of fashionable dressing.
Women have grown a tride suspicious of those who talk to them about dress reform, because of the experiences that we have had in our attempts at wearing reformed clothes. First, there was the deeply respected Amelia Bloomer, who gave us a convenient, comfortable, hygienic, and utterly hideous costume which suggested badly made underclothes and which was worn by a few women with more moral courage than esthecism for a few mouths or years and then discarded. Later on came the efforts of the esthetes, and we of the present generation tried sad green draperies embroidered with conventionalized and tried to think we did not look untidy. But we know that we did. We working women have nothing to do with Greek draperies, and anyone who offers them to us is a fool. We cannot sweep, iron, wash, write, sew, wait at the dry goods counter, use the typewriter, carry the babies and canvass for books in Greek draperies. Moreover, we will not try Draperies are pretty things to lecture in, and to give physical exercises in, or to wear when we are playing the violin to a perfumed audience. But the Greek gown is an ideal thing for our most elegant hours, and is no more a part of this bustling, energetic, relentless age than is the Koman toga. And heaven knows what the business man of today would do in a toga. Therefore I advise you whenever the dress reform lecturer begins to tell you to wear Greek draperies, to leave her to the mellow flow of her own ideas, and hurry off about your business. Such talk may earn a living for the lecturer, but it will never be of any use to you I am morally sure that if I went through one of my hurried days in Greek draperies that before night they would be fluttering about me in sheds like a battleflag after an engagement.
No, for work and for play, we must have tidy, convenient, trim clothes, which will not get in our way, which will become us and which are fashionable. One of the choicest remarks of the dress reform lecturer is to advise one net to wear fashionable clothes. The reason she gives is that it entails much expense, is apt to be unbecoming, and is often injurious to the health, and disfiguring to the body. These are good reasons, and we might profoundly respect them if we were not morally certain that as soon as the lecturer got well out of sight of the audience to which she has been given such advice, that she will, herself, don a garment of the most fashionable make. I am not going to tell you not to dress in the fashion because I do not believe in wasting energy. I know, whatever I may say, that you will dress just as fashioably as you know how. and as your purse will permit. And, therefore. I shall say nothing against-it and especially, as I dress just as fashionably as I can myself. I would very much rather spend the time this evening you how to dress appropriately . The Parisian is the best dressed woman in the world-unless-it is the New Yorker-for the reason that she knows how to dress appropriately. The trouble with almost all young girls is unless they have mothers who exercise a great deal of firmness, that they try to dress too well. That is to say, they wear finery. Now, there are only a few places where one may appropriately wear finery. And if you are not in the way of going to such places, then do not spend your money on it. If you do not go to the parties, balls, dinners and afternoon receptions, do not buy such materials such colors as you would naturally wear at such places, and which are at only for such places. Do not pretend to be anything but what you are. One does not succeed by pretending, but by being exceedingly honest in regard to one's self. If your purse is limited, then waste none of its precious contents in purchasing cheap finery which will show its cheapness, and mark you as cheap, too.
Never get a cheap silk when you can buy a good cashmere with the same money. A plain material, honest of its kind is always preferable to a pretentious material which is dishonest of its kind.
Is stocking up one's wardrobe, one