es, $90 to $250. Dressmakers
charge $450 to $600.

_New York._--Winter street dress, $225.

Skunk muff and stole, $200.

Hats for the year, at least $250 to $300.

Footwear, $250 per annum.

I am informed that a lady in active society can "manage with care" on
$2500, but really needs $4500 to $5000.

A "moderate" wardrobe allows for "extremely simple" gowns costing $125
each; the lady in question requires at least six new evening dresses and
six remodeled, per annum. She wore an average set of furs, price $1500.

_London._--Debenham & Freebody blouse, $10.

Ponting's Leghorn hat, $8. Gorringe straws, $12 to $14.

I am informed that where the household income is $3500 to $7500 a year
the ordinary prices are as follows:

Coats and skirts, $50 to $75.

Evening dresses, $75 to $120.

Hats, $7.50 to $20.

Silk stockings are cheap at $1.50, and veils at $1.50.

Now these are all moderate figures and will shock nobody, but if they
are compared with the prices paid by men, they are, without any question
of fashion, outrageous. I believe they are high because it is men and
not women who pay, because the dressmaker trades on man's
sex-enslavement. But I am concerned just now less with causes than
with facts, and would rather ask how the modest $100 evening gown
compares with the man's $63 dress suit (by a good tailor). How does the
$63 coat and skirt compare with a man's lounge suit, price $36 by
anybody save Poole, and by him only $52.50? No man has, I believe, paid
more than $9 for a silk hat, while his wife pays at least $20. The point
is not worth laboring, it is obvious; while every man knows that a "good
cut" does not account for the discrepancy, as he too pays, but pays
moderately, for the art of a good tailor. And, mark you, apart from
cost, men's clothes last indefinitely, while women's, if they have the
misfortune to last, must be given away.

The prices I have quoted are moderate prices, and I cannot resist the
temptation to give some others which are not unusual. I am informed that
$400 can easily be charged for an afternoon dress, $1000 for an evening
dress, $200 for a coat and skirt; that it is quite easy to spend $5000 a
year on underclothes and $250 on an aigrette. I observe a Maison Lewis
Ascot hat, price $477. Yantorny will not make a shoe under $60; a pair
of his shoes made of feathers is priced by him at $2400.

As for totals: I have private info