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Woman's Page Gost of a Social Whim. The influence of woman upon the affairs of man is demonstrated by the tragical variance between E. H. Harriman and Stuyvesant Fish. These two strong figures of the financial world belong to dif ferent social coteries, dominated by different women —hence the breach, costing countless millions of money and jeopardizing the control of thousands of miles of railway. When one of the social set at Newport refused to invite another to an elite ball she was probably as free from knowledge as from care that the grati fication of her whim of vanity would cover the sea of finance in this country with wreckage. • IV. G. T. U. 7\gainst Smoot. At the twenty-first annual convention of the Wo man's Christian Temperance Union of Southern Idaho, held October 11 - 13 , 1907 , Mrs. Adaline A. Garlock, the president, said : "The retention of Reed Smoot in the United States Senate was a severe disappointment to the millions of Christian people who had interested themselves in the case and who realize that this action of Congress has assisted the establishment all the more effectually of hierarchy, whose power is already too strongly felt in the government of this state." Garing For Girls. The good women of the United States are de termined that society shall not escape society's re sponsibility toward children and young people. They are determined also that remedy rather than pun ishment shall be applied. Experience has taught that it costs less to protect the young person from descent into an offensive life than to protect society later on from the consequences of that individual offensive life. Particularly is this true with regard to girls, whose instinct is almost universally for good, and who, if they fall into sin at all, fall there through neglect or through a temptation superin duced by man. A striking instance of the expression of this holy determination by women is found in the declaration of Mrs. Henry Solomon of Chicago, who was re cently elected president of the Illinois State Feder ation of Women's Clubs. Mrs. Solomon says : "Illinois is indulging in a fearful waste of its children. The helpless girls who are left dependent should be cared for and trained to lives of useful ness, but they • are allowed to slip into paths of crime and immorality because they cannot be commodated in the institutions established for their maintenance. Even when they do find refuge in such homes they do not receive the food, training or education that should be provided them. "The women of the state will ac co-operate in an effort to fit and train the young girls for lives as home-makers. An intelligent domestic class and pable nurses are needed everywhere. These are avenues which are open and the club members feel that it is in their power to afford assistance in this way. They will become friends of the friendless and mothers to the orphans. They will let the homeless know something of home life. "When we remember that the courts of Chicago are turning out about 100 delinquents, defectives and dependents every week who cannot be dated in any institution whatever, but are compelled to go back to the surroundings from which they came, then we see the need of attention on the part of the state. This state of affairs is due in the main, I believe, to carelessness in the division of taxes. It is easy for the state to legislate, but not so easy to collect the money. "The ideal system, and the one toward which the ca accommo women of the state are working, is a sufficient num ber of institutions for girls well equipped for their care, and a more personal interest on the part of the women themselves in individual cases." The noble activity which women are showing in affairs of the home, and the rightfulness of in fluence which the home should exercise upon public life and the expenditures of public taxation, are bringing men—prominent in politics and business— to a consciousness that they can no longer avoid this great subject. Even practical politics concerns itself at last with ethical questions; because so soon as the practical politician learns, as the noble women of the country are forcing him to learn, that he cannot succeed when the sentimentality of the women is against him, he at once becomes a convert to the Cause of the Great Uplift of Humanity. Tragedy of Four Wives. Here is a case of modern polygamy in the Mor mon church : James Thompson of Brigham City, Utah, was the "husband" of three wives. With these three wives he was dwelling in defiance of law when the manifesto of the Mormon church was issued pledging to the nation Mormon obedience to law. With these three wives he continued to live in de fiance of law after that manifesto and that pledge. He received the amnesty of the Government, based upon his solemn promise to observe the law ; he received his civil rights and exercised them ; and he continued to violate, the condition upon which the amnesty was granted. About ten years after the pledge and the amnesty; after ten years of this notorious and offensive way of living—enjoying the generosity of the Govern ment -while violating all its conditions—James Thompson was sent upon a foreign mission by the Mormon church. From that mission he returned recently, bringing with him a woman whom he in stalled in his home or homes in Brigham City. She became his fourth "wife." This was a case of new polygamy and attracted some attention. The church and the facile neigh bors had condoned his polygamous living with his three wives. The church condoned, countenanced, advised and officiated in his new polygamous mar riage. But the neighbors gossiped. So James Thomp son was called to go to Mexico, to operate there in conjunction with his fellow believers of the church, in that place of refuge provided by the church. When James Thompson went to Mexico he took his fourth, being at that time his latest and of course his youngest "wife." He deserted the three older wives, leaving them in want and loneliness in Brigham City, Utah. James Thompson is in the full confidence of the leaders of the Mormon church ; he occupies his sta tion and his priesthood and his church authority in Mexico. And yet the Mormon church denies, and Apostle Smoot in the Senate denied, any responsibility for polygamy. Will the good women of the United States sense the tragedy which these circumstances indicate? Will they condone those politicians, and will they sustain in public life those pretended statesmen who vote to increase the power of the Mormon church by permitting its Apostle to sit and make laws for de cent Christians to observe? Gombined Perfection. Gibbon, the historian, was forty-seven years of age when he wrote a fanciful letter on marriage to his friend, Lady Sheffield, he said : "Should you be very much surprised to hear of my being married? Amazing as it may seem, I do assure you that the event is less improbable than it would have appeared to myself a twelve month ago. Deyverdun and I have often agreed, in jest and in earnest, that a house like ours would In his communication be regulated, and graced, and enlivened by an agree able female companion ; but each of us seems de sirous that his friend should sacrifice himself for the public good. Since my residence here I have lived much in women's company; and, to your credit be it spoken, I like you the better the more I see of you. Not that I am in love with any particular person. I have discovered about half a dozen wives who would please me in different ways, and by various merits: one as a mistress (a widow, vastly like Eliza ; if she returns I am to bring them to gether) ; a second, a lively entertaining acquaint ance; a third, a sincere good-natured friend; a fourth, who would preside with grace and dignity at the head of my table and family; a fifth, an excel lent economist and housekeeper; and a sixth, a very useful nurse. "Could I find all these qualities united in a single person, I should dare to make my addresses, and should deserve to be refused." The Gost of Fashion. It is an aphorism of some of the social econo mists that the expenditure by the rich for luxuries constitute the opportunity of the poor to obtain comforts. Such writers avow that the building of one palace for a multimillionaire means an expendi ture of money and the consequent employment of toil which may afford opportunity for the construc tion of a hundred cottages. Similarly they argue that for every gown costing a thousand dollars which a rich woman wears, a dozen poor women can ob tain as a consequent result their appropriate rai ment. It is not the noblest devotion of money to ex pend it upon extravagant clothing; but assuming for a moment that this particular school of social economists is correct, it will be interesting to know what it costs to dress a rich woman for a year. Gertrude Lynch tells the story in the November number of Everybody's Magazine, as follows : "A woman who wishes the name of being well dressed, as fashion knows the term, must have at least five or six imported costumes; also an equal number of domestic afternoon and evening dresses and of tailor-made gowns. There must be an ap propriate hat for every out-of-door gown ; and these cost anywhere from $50 to $100 or $200 apiece. In summer, a fashionable woman must have forty or fifty lingerie gowns, ranging from the cobweb of lace to the simple mull, costing not more than $ 150 . She must have morning gowns—she will pay $125 for a simple muslin with perhaps two yards of in expensive lace on it. Half a dozen evening coats for winter, and an equal number of lace or silk for summer, are a matter of course. When the Irish lace crochet coats first became popular, one shop here sold 450 in a month, no one of them priced less than $200. And the accessories, are in propor tionate extravagance; for lingerie, handkerchiefs, scarves and fans $5000 or $6000 a year is a con servative estimate. "A pair of gloves is worn but once; and delicate shoes, made of imported leather to match the tint of a fabric, suffer a similar eclipse after a debut in a ballroom. For many women pride themselves on never wearing a cleaned garment. After a couple of wearings they will send an imported gown to a second-hand dealer, receiving a $100 bill for the creation that may have cost $ 800 . The dealer sells it to an actress starting on her tour, to the society leader of a small town, or to a member of the demi monde. "On the other hand, the woman who patronizes the cleaning establishments spends there from $1500 to $1800 a year. For when one pays $20 to have lace gown cleaned after a single wearing; when gloves by the hundred and blouses fifty at a time are sent to be renovated, it does not take long to reach a sum that parallels the salary on which many a man supports a family." And this scheme of dress woman of $100,000 per annum. a means a cost to one