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TOPICAL READING.

too much velvet.

In all communities mere are people who will fiddle harmonics on the strings of triviality (to adapt George Meredith), while the world around them shakes with a conflict of great issues, and'.he British public is no exception to o e rule. The fight over the Budget atiU the House of Lords merely diminished slightly, but did not kill, the demand for articles on "How Long Should a Woman Take to Dress?" "Should Pet Does Have Valets?" and "Men Who Have Loved Me" (the last by some musical comedy favourite). Mrs Flora Annie Steel writes to the ''London Press" in ■ righteous indignation about the growing passion among women for fine clothing. Her text is the following passage from a daily paper: As ■ the important period of the general election is quickly approaching, our women, anxious to help and work for their friends, for their country, are busy ordering costumes for the campaign. . . - Velvet is the

prevailing note in these charming creations, which seem ideal gowns for the occasion.'' We women ask for votes, cries Mrs Steel; an election is at hand in which the fate of Britain quivers in the balance; and the talk is of velvet! Are the women for whom tljis passage was written fit to have votes? Luxury in dress, she declares, is eating out the heart of poor girls and sapping the sanity of society women. "Not long ago I took refuge from a storm among some council schoolgirls on their way home from church or chapel. I was not absolutely in rags, but totalling up ori their own estimates the cost of their costumes I stood pre-eminently economical. All the more so since my garments would last, and theirs were evanescent. For strings of beads and rolled-gold brooches, lalse lace, and brown-paper high heels are not among the eternal verities." She calls for taxation of women's dress. Half the dress of the day is pure luxury, if it is not a vice, and by all the canons of political science should be taxed. This is the view of the indignant idealist. The.view of the woman of the world is put by Lady Dorothy Nevill, a grande dame of social and political circles. She says cheerfully that pretty clothes win votes, and therefore should be used i freely. The Suffragists, she remarks, made little headway so long as they made 'guys" of themselves, but directly they employed expensive dress makers, the anti-suffrage women found it necessary to organise against them. .

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19100215.2.8

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9719, 15 February 1910, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
418

TOPICAL READING. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9719, 15 February 1910, Page 4

TOPICAL READING. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9719, 15 February 1910, Page 4

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