COST OF WOMEN’S CLOTHES AND MEN’S.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 781, 3 November 1922, Page 2

COST OF WOMEN’S CLOTHES AND MEN’S.

In one respect at least the modern tendency to level the position of men and women has not reached perfection, and that is in their relative expenditure on clothes. In this detail of her daily existence woman is still vastly superior to man. That the amount of money annually spent upon decorating the wife and daughter greatly exceeded that spent upon the husband and: son, has long been suspected, but staticties re-' centiy compiled by the Census Bureau brings the whole situation to the light of day. These figures are Intended to show primarily the manufactures of New York City; they disclose that New York turns out one-twelfth of all the manufactured goods produced in the United States and that, these manufactures have a •total value of more than 5,000,000 dols. This fact is a stupendous one in itself, but more interesting to the student cyf social progress are the figures dealing with the city’s greatest industry, the production of men’s and women’s wearing apparel. New York, of course, does not produce rdl the clothing and millinery produced in the United States ; but the comparative statistics its figures suggest can probably be taken as typical of most manufacturing centres. Here then is the suggestive table:— MEN. Clothing 480,596,385 Furnishing goods .... 50/292,860 Hats and caps 44,823,840 Dollars. 576,713,085 WOMEN. ' Dollars. Clothing 866,243,561 Corsets 12,865,474 Furs 132,145,251 Millinery and lace good 162,186,055 1,273,440’341 There are other materials, that women probably consume to a much, greater degree than men. Thus the heading “lapidary work”—to the ■tune of 2v,000,000 dollars a year—means mainly diamond cutting and diamonds, while not unknown to the manly finger;, much more frequently help to make beautiful the feminine hand and throat. New York annually purchases jewellery to thq, extent of 65,391,595 dollars, and few will dispute that this 'is a iformj of extravagance to which women are more given than men. Somewhat more doubt arises as to the consumption of the confectionery and ice cream that is credited with 8.4, 564,630 dollars ; for boys and girls are equally addicted to sweets and they are consumed—for the most part surreptitiously—on a large scale-by full grown men. Even though women are chiefly responsible for this expenditure they have a fair retort in the figures for cigarettes ,cigars and tobacco, which reach the great total of 146,033,207 dollars ; probably the cigarette habit among women, though rapidly developing, accounts for only a minute proportion of this grand total. Had these staticties been coirq^rled' three years ago, men would have suffered still more from the standpoint of self-indulgence, for then the table would have included the figures for alcoholic drinks. There are indications that such beverages are produced and sold on a considerable scale in New York even to-day ; but obviously a solemn Government report cannot set forth the statistics of an illegal product.—World’s Work-