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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1917)
TIIE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, JANUARY 21, 1917. I Is the Perilous Waist less Gown a Question of the "Right Woman" or One of Soda I Propriety? An Evening Gown of Black Jet That Seems to Begin at the Waist, Which Could ot Be Worn Without Tempting Criticism of the v Shoulders. . - :::V1 - .-; A . . i , ? . r 1 f ' ,' Kitty Gordon - , , - ' ' ; , i r " i .'I ; 'f f Has Often Been ' ('J " -' J -sv ' I V. ; t Called "The Girl ."Hsv t.' 5 1 , i ' with the t - . A ' - J Beautiful.. I C -) .) ' " . ,v , ' . ' 1 - v Shoulders. V . I i) i I -.t ..wy . 1 k " : -v-" v, m,x.., po.lrf ou. o. A' .vf of the Beauties Whose Shoulders ftfr v i ' a 1 I J, j." . ' s ?c A a . . i-e 5 ' : I .1 t ' . ' fc - '1 h .'..-. .-, . "j. Jr - - -. v.J? ;y-v3 -' .- s. . ( ...... .V .r-' f , "-' v.- 1 .' 7: - "-...... r. . JU'-:-- .! : . - 7-r .,:. ? I, r - r - j -My' V - Vv:v i i if ( - - f- 1 I t-t 51 f ' teg 4t ' ; i i V' :r.x t 1 .-H-Jf x - l " ' r'.v: Lt-, .' yw ,w; i v--, TV . I f ,J .. i $?--. 1 : v'.'r- - J-w-l r.-T.. v.-:.. 3 . I f!J- - m vr, r - V '. -. s v j- '' ; c,f '' . ' n1 h i : VI ? -V 4 r Z"- . 1 I -: .w T--i - i'- . . - ' .".. .r, v tv- .T-jr.- .. - .... ... v . S:.v '. 'r''i v; i - - .'.-'. 'sXv - 5 - - i - 1 A Favorite Type of Evening Gown, Demonstrating the Indispensability of Good Shoulders to Success in Wearing Fashionable Dress. BT ELEANOR CARRINGTOX. YOU may tell me that there always Is some sort of fashion quarrel. And you would be speaking the exact truth. Dressing Is an art. And art Is a mat ter of opinion. Heintf a matter of opinion, it ia a matter of quarrelinsr. So there you are. Just now. the uhouiUer Question Is Another Illustration of the Gown That Seems to Begin at the Waist. The Low V Back Is One of the Most Criticised of Gown Effects. ber of years ago when a daring stage person paraded one uncovered ehuolder? The escapade was considered very shocking. Nowadays a gown from which both uncovered arms and shoulders pro trude. without even a shoulder strap, is no very remarkable matter. And yet these two uncovered shoul ders were a matter of gripping two narrow bands that performed merely a decorative function. Queen Victoria's edict was for a corsage cut straight across and expos ing both shoulders above the small arm straps. The Queen was extremely strict as to clothes, very much for the proprieties, and her dress corsage was eminently proper ia thai day. You becoming acute. Not that people can do without shoulders, or that anyone has suggested doing without them. The question is, should they be shown so much? Should beautiful dress effects become a shoulder question altogether? Queen Victoria's Rule. Do you remember of course you don't if you are very young what a sensation waa created a certain num.- could not attend her functions wearing any other form of gown, no matter how bitterly the sharpness of your shoulders. The prominence of your clavicle or your shoulder blades might resent the publication. What was easier than to . snip the two arm bands? Yet this was a long time in happen ing. First one free arm and the re sulting shock. Then the two free arms. Within the past two seasons bared shoulders in a corsage that rises but. few inches above the waist has be come a commonplace. Corsets had to be revised. All of our notions of dress had to be revised. Skirts really come to begin at the top of the girdle re gion. For the rest, for shoulder bands or arm bands, these became a matter merely of decorative fluff. One result of the new fashion is the same art question raised in Queen Vic toria's time should the shoulders be paraded when they are not beautiful? We can't ail have shoulders like Kitty Gordon or Vera Maxwell. Yet such is the spell of fashion that pitifully spare shoulders are placed, as it were, in the spotlight quite as if they were an en hancement of the owners' beauty. Dresses cut far below the arm pit are indeed a severe test of taste, for few women are so built as to make the effect seem attractive, even if we leave out of consideration all other questions of propriety. Of course the artists say these ef fects are beautiful when they are beau tiful, and that they are ugly when they are not beautiful. In other words, they hold that the effects are right for the right woman. No wonder there is confusion in the present discussion. Shall wearing cov ered shoulders be a confession of phys ical inferiority? Then her ladyship will wear bare shoulders. This is equivalent to saying that she would rather produce an ugly effect than ap pear to decry her own charm. Meanwhile, gowns are not changing in any way to relieve the situation. There seems to be fewer and fewer al ternatives. A vast number of designs continue to give the impression of a gown beginning at the waist where once they began at the shoulders. All this Is quite according to certain orien tal, barbaric or theatrical design, but scarcely a social or domestic answer to the gown problem. Back "V's" now literally run to the waist line, and It would seem to be inevitable that - if there is to be any change it will be a change that once more recognises the shoulders as having the right to be draped in some fashion. The Masdarts Gm, Paradoxically, the era that recog nizes these forma as the height (or depth) of correctness in a party frock has welcomed the Mandarin gown, one of the most enveloping and concealing devices since the Introduction of the Japanese kimono, it is, indeed, mrucb more concealing than the kimono, for it has no V at the throat. So much for the contradictions of fashions. I have no doubt that we are approaching a time when the body from chin to toe will be covered, even for dress occa sions, as never before. Fashion loves i not merely change but reversals. It loves novelty best when the novelty turns most abruptly from the past. One of the startling changes had the time of the immortal shoulder puffs, the most hideous fashion that any one may prove by turning to- the family photograph album. Doubtless, too. the crinoline shoulders were the result of rebellion against the skin-tight Jer seys. Very likely the Grecian bend and the "pull back" skirts were having a fling at hoopsklrts. Fashion Is very contemptuous of the past until it is Just ready to go back and give a re incarnation to some particular exploit of an earlier era. The longest skirts that ever were worn you had to gather them up when you crossed a room have been fol lowed by the shortest skirts that ever were worn. The highest ruffs that ever happened since Queen Elizabeth's day have been followed by the lowest corsage known to the history or fasn ion. In all of these forms, the artists and dressmaking connoisseurs will tell you, there were elements of eternal beauty. So was the extreme of the case" that offended, and the undebatable misfor tune of the right gown on the wrong woman. So that we are again back at the age-old problem of Tightness, which every woman must decide for herself. After she has decided on the ethical propriety of a gown, if she goes so far, she must decide whether she is the woman to wear it. She must not, if she is wise, take the abstract ditum of fashion, or the ruthless pronounce, ment of the dressmaker. She must, by whatever course, decide for her self whether gown and woman prop erly belong together. When the ques tion Is rightly answered beauty is ap peased, and in no other way ciin it be appeased. LEGAL SIDELIGHTS FOR LAWYERS AND" LAYMEN BY RETXELLE G. K. CORNISH. OF PORTLA.VI) BAR. QJOCIAL clubs. Many people who are terms of the by-law creating the priv ilege, i ne Dyiaws constituted. In ef fect, a contract between the different kJ most careful In their businesadeal- Ings are apt to regard membership in a social club as a matter of small im portance, and to hold the rules and regulations by which they are bound, and the obligations which they agree to assume on joining, as more or less a matter of form and of slight conse quence. The case of Boston Club vs. Potter, 98 N. E. 614, will serve to impress upon such people the fact that the Joining of a social organization may cause a contractual relation to arise between the different members and the club, and that this contract will be as seri ously regarded and as strictly enforced by the courts as if It were a contract involving purely business instead of social obligations. In the case above cited, the defend ant claimed to have handed in bis res ignation on January 8, 1907. His letter of resignation, however, was not re ceived by the club's secretary or passed upon by Its executive committee. The dues for the succeeding year became payable on December 1. 1907. On De cember 9, 1907, the defendant repeated bis resignation, and soon after the club went into the hands of a receiver and the clubhouse closed. . The receiver attempted to collect the dues which had become payable De cember 1. 1907, on the ground that the defendant was at that time a member In good standing and therefore liable. The defendant objected, claiming that his resignation of January 8 was valid. and also that the closing of the club house deprived him of some of the benefits of membership and thus can celled his obligation to pay dues. The court, however, regarded the de fendant's obligation as a legally en forceabie debt, and held him reapons lble therefor, saying. In part: "Resig nation, with a cessation of further lia bility for membership dues, was a priv ilege of the member, and to avail him self of it ha must comply with, the members and the corporation The defendants resignation of De cember 9. 1907, cannot avail him be cause he then owed the club for the dues which had accrued on December first of the year. It was only a mem ber not then indebted to the club who could send to the secretary a written resignation. . . The appointment of the receiver and the closing of the club house, depriving the defendant of some of the benefits of membership, furnish no deiense to the action. His liability or the annual dues was fixed on De cember 1; it was a liability for the whole amount thereof, though he could liquidate It in quarterly payments. "Nor did his membership cease Ipso facto on February 1. 190S, under the last clause of article iv section S. of the bylaws because of his failure to pay the dues within two months from December 1. 1907, so as to relieve him from further liability for those dues. He could not by his own failure term inate the responsibility which he had assumed, though the club might have done so." Injury without redress. Not all damages are legally collectible, even when the person responsible is a long suffering railroad corporation, as wit ness the case of Carney vs. Boston Ele vated R. R. Company, 98 M. E. 605. The plaintiff in this case had been injured while riding In an open surface car feeneath the defendant railroad's elevated structure. "She heard the rumble of an elevated train over her car, 'saw the sparks flying,' looked up and was struck In the eye by a spark, which could be found to have been a minute piece or hot iron, about as large as the point of a pin, coming from the elevated road, and, as we assume, from the contact shoe of the train which was passing thereon. "The structure waa properly in the street and the defendant was author ized to operate its road by electricity. There was no 'evidence that it was a frequent occurrence for sparks to fall from its passing into the street, or in deed that this had ever before hap pened. There was nothing to indicate that the defendant ought to have fore seen this danger and to have guarded against it or given warning of its existence. There was no evidence that there was any practicable method or device for checking the emission of sparks from its trains or its electrical apparatus, or preventing their fall to the street, which the defendant had failed to adopt. There was nothing to show any lack of proper care on the part of the defendant in the operation of its trains or cars." Under this evidence the court refused to hold the defendant liable, saying, in part: "It is true, no doubt, that the cause of her (the plaintiff's) injury could be found to have come from the operation of apparatus which had been furnished and applied by the defendant and was wholly under its management and control. . , . but this single circumstance is not always enough. "Where, as here, the cause of the accident has come from the lawful operation by lawful means of an au thorized instrumentality, and where any damage or injury that has resulted may have come without any negligence of the defendant, but may have arisen merely as an unavoidable accident from the careful and skillful exercise of its lawful rights in spite of the observance of all proper precautions, there no lia bility can arise without some affirma tive evidence of negligence. "In such a case, the happening of the accident with the resulting injury is as likely to have come without the fault of the defendant as to .have been due to its negligence. ... The in ference of negligence cannot be drawn without some evidence to support it." THH DIXIE GIRL. Fair little rebel across the line Or was It your mother? Oh. memory mine, , How swiftly the rivers run. Tell me why roses and lilacs grow. Tell me the riddle why breezes blow So sweet from your land of sun. Rom to the purple and horse and drum. Waiting the Prince who is sure to como To kiss and to claim your hand; Foolish you are. I have heard It said. Clinging to theories long since dead. And loyal to fairyland. Scorning the hatchet and brick and bomb. Loving your home and the "Junior prom." And holding traditions dear: Ruling your place, or cot, at rest. Looking to men for their noblest, best. And trusting your cavalier. Victor somehow, though the flag be furled. Mistress somehow In a changing world. And every man at jour feet. Men are but fools? Well, it may be true. But ready to live or to die for you. A woman, and always sweet. Charles I. Junkin in People's Homo Journal. A