of education and refinement, or at least belong to
families and occupy positions in which one would expect to find those
qualities! The reason, however, is not difficult to discover.

In the wake of our hasty and immature prosperity has come (as it does to
all suddenly enriched societies) a love of ostentation, a desire to
dazzle the crowd by displays of luxury and rich trappings indicative of
crude and vulgar standards. The newly acquired money, instead of being
expended for solid comforts or articles which would afford lasting
satisfaction, is lavished on what can be worn in public, or the outer
shell of display, while the home table and fireside belongings are
neglected. A glance around our theatres, or at the men and women in our
crowded thoroughfares, is sufficient to reveal to even a casual observer
that the mania for fine clothes and what is costly, _per se_, has become
the besetting sin of our day and our land.

The tone of most of the papers and of our theatrical advertisements
reflects this feeling. The amount of money expended for a work of art or
a new building is mentioned before any comment as to its beauty or
fitness. A play is spoken of as "Manager So and So's thirty-thousand-
dollar production!" The fact that a favorite actress will appear in four
different dresses during the three acts of a comedy, each toilet being a
special creation designed for her by a leading Parisian house, is
considered of supreme importance and is dwelt upon in the programme as a
special attraction.

It would be astonishing if the taste of our women were different,
considering the way clothes are eternally being dangled before their
eyes. Leading papers publish illustrated supplements devoted exclusively
to the subject of attire, thus carrying temptation into every humble
home, and suggesting unattainable luxuries. Windows in many of the
larger shops contain life-sized manikins loaded with the latest costly
and ephemeral caprices of fashion arranged to catch the eye of the poorer
class of women, who stand in hundreds gazing at the display like larks
attracted by a mirror! Watch those women as they turn away, and listen
to their sighs of discontent and envy. Do they not tell volumes about
petty hopes and ambitions?

I do not refer to the wealthy women whose toilets are in keeping with
their incomes and the general footing of their households; that they
should spend more or less in fitting themselves out daintily is