"It is not necessary. Worth has my measures!"




CHAPTER 4 - The Outer and the Inner Woman


IT is a sad commentary on our boasted civilization that cases of
shoplifting occur more and more frequently each year, in which the
delinquents are women 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