It is she who is the best patron of the elaborate and monstrous cheap furniture, rugs, draperies, crockery, bric-a-brac, which fill the shops of the cheaper quarters of the great cities, and usually all quarters of the newer inland towns.
Has all this no relation to national prosperity--to the cost of living?
The effect on the victim's personal budget is clear--the effect it has on the family budget, which it dominates, is clear.

In both cases nothing of permanent value is acquired.

The good linen undergarments, the "all wool" gown, the broadcloth cape or coat, those standard garments which the thrifty once acquired and cherished, only awaken the mirth of the pretty little spendthrift on $8 a week.

Solid pieces of furniture such as often dignify even the huts of European peasants and are passed down from mother to daughter for generations--are objects of contempt by the younger generation here.
Even the daughters of good old New England farmers are found to-day glad to exchange mahogany for quartered oak and English pewter for pressed glass and stamped crockery.

True, another generation may come in and buy it all back at fabulous prices, but the waste of it! This production of shoddy cloth, cotton laces, cheap furniture, what is it but waste! Waste of labor and material! Time and money and strength which might have been turned to producing things of permanent values, have been spent in things which have no goodness in them, things which because of their lack of integrity and soundness must be forever duplicated, instead of freeing industry to go ahead, producing other good and permanent things.
What it all amounts to is that the instinct for ornament has gotten the upper hand of a great body of American women.