THE BATTLE OF AN EVENING GOWN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue III, 19 January 1895, Page 64

THE BATTLE OF AN EVENING GOWN.

MRS BROWN POTTRR’S ADVENTURES. MRS BROWN POTTER, who was out io this part of the world a year or so ago, has been raising a veritable storm in a tea pot in America. Mrs Potter has shocked the moral susceptibilities of Chicago of all places in the world —or rather it would be more correct to say she had offended the delicacy of a fair proportion of the population of that city, which Mr Stead has branded as the most scandalously wicked and corrupt spot on the surface of this planet. Raving read thus far, the reader will naturally expect to hear of some offence which is quite unnameable to ears innocent or polite. Far from it. Had it been so the story had never been begun, for this is a cleanly paper for cleanly

people—at least we hope so. Mrs Potter wore a dress in the present fashion. Solemnly that was all. The story is as thus :— On Mrs Potter’s first appearance in Chicago last month, after a long absence, the critic of one of the largest and most influential papers rose up in bis place as she came on the stage and ostentationsly left his place, declaring in audible tones he would not stay and see a naked woman act. He went to the management and stormed, and then to the street and the Club with the same story. The dress, it appears, was nob injudiciously low, far less indecently so. It was according to an eye witness, in the prevailing fashion, a Worth execution in black satin, but decidedly high, both back and front, but low on the shoulders after the style which may be seen at every gathering of women in the latest fashionable evening attire or in the pictures of our grandparents in their young days. The matter has, however, formed the subject of quite a hubbub in wicked Chicago, and police have to prevent the crush at the theatre so great is the rush to see the famous dress. We give two portraits of the fair Potter, one of which is reproduced from our own pages.