COST OF WOMEN’S CLOTHESAND MEN’S

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18618, 24 October 1922, Page 6

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 statistics recently compiled by the Census Bureau bring 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 onetwelfth of all the manufactured goods produced in the United States, and that these manufactures have a total value of more than 5,000,000 do]. This fact is a stupendous one in itself, but more interesting to ths student of 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 all the clothing and millinery produced in the United States; but the comparative statistics its figures sugyes can probably be taken as typical of most manufacturing centres. Here, then, is this suggestive table:—• MEN. Dollars. Clothing 480,596,385 Furnishing goods . . 50,292,860 Hats a'nd caps 44,823,840 576,713,085 WOMEN. Dollars. Clothing 866,243561 Corsets 12,865,474 Furs . . , 132,145,251 Millinery and lace goods .. . . .. . . 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 27,0:00.000 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 the extent of 65,391,595 dollars, and few will dispute that this is a fcrm 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 84.564,630 dollars; for boys and Sit's aro 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 hab't among women, though rapidly developing, accounts for only a minute proportion of this grand total. Had these statistics been compiled 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.