other, related principles of pecuniary
repute are also exemplified in the same contrivances. Other methods
of putting one's pecuniary standing in evidence serve their end
effectually, and other methods are in vogue always and everywhere; but
expenditure on dress has this advantage over most other methods, that
our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of our
pecuniary standing to all observers at the first glance. It is also true
that admitted expenditure for display is more obviously present, and is,
perhaps, more universally practiced in the matter of dress than in any
other line of consumption. No one finds difficulty in assenting to the
commonplace that the greater part of the expenditure incurred by all
classes for apparel is incurred for the sake of a respectable appearance
rather than for the protection of the person. And probably at no other
point is the sense of shabbiness so keenly felt as it is if we fall
short of the standard set by social usage in this matter of dress. It
is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of
consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of
privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford
what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that
it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate,
for people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed. And the
commercial value of the goods used for clotting in any modern community
is made up to a much larger extent of the fashionableness, the
reputability of the goods than of the mechanical service which they
render in clothing the person of the wearer. The need of dress is
eminently a "higher" or spiritual need.

This spiritual need of dress is not wholly, nor even chiefly, a naive
propensity for display of expenditure. The law of conspicuous waste
guides consumption in apparel, as in other things, chiefly at the second
remove, by shaping the canons of taste and decency. In the common run of
cases the conscious motive of the wearer or purchaser of conspicuously
wasteful apparel is the need of conforming to established usage, and of
living up to the accredited standard of taste and reputability. It is
not only that one must be guided by the code of proprieties in dress in
order to avoid the mortification that comes of unfavorable notice and
comment, though that motive in itself counts for a great deal; but
besides that, the