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Show F.SlliilSIR!(ITE Flortuco Pinch Kolly on the Shoe Question Ques-tion The Subject Iully Discussed. SOME OF THE OLD TIYE SHOES. Shall the Leathering Covering of Woman's Lower Extremities Be Low and Sensible or High? N' KYV YOliK. July SO.-Which is it to In' v Inch is it high heels or eniiiiiHiiisense heels corsets or health waists, new tangled or old fangleil aria ar-ia iigemcnts of underwear? There are people ho declare that low heels and broad soles have gained no wearing worth speaking of; that French heels are as much the favorites now as they ever were; that corsets rind otherolhodox utidcrwearstill com nut ml the faith and the affections ("fall the feminine sex save a few cranky eveep-tions eveep-tions who are not worth mentioning when the subject of apparel is under consideration. this kind (f shoe. It has grwwn and its proprietor has prtvs( rcl atuazinly during dur-ing these last half dozen, years. He started in the business with only one side of one narrow little room and ouo clerk. Now he has a big istaWishmeut, a largv force of clerks and a patronajra that kivjis hi two goodly mtns well oc- j cnpiisl from morning till night. His j ! clerks sell shoes upon a new and nniqnt plan, but nun that is necessary to hii thertry of what a flwe is fur. I saw one ! tilting an uleg.-uttly drvwwd lk.lv. and as ! j lie xeel his hand over the instep and ; felt of tho toe 1 eipts-U'd him to say, after af-ter tho manner of Uio, usual shoe store I clork, "That is pretty large. IXm't ymt : want to try a half siui smilU'T?" But in-e'.ond in-e'.ond he quietly remarked: "It is of no j use for you to take tins shoe. It is much hio small." Afterward he explained in answer to my astonished commeiit: "We have t.c! say that lmuiy timra a dsy, and freiiuent-1 ly have to insist upon a larger siw. lur j patronage depnds mainly iiwn the com- j fort with which our shoes can lie worn, j and consequently it is to our interest for us to urge such shoes as wo know will j be comfortable." j It would be no small wonder if the ( fashion should swing aUmt even more ' rapidly than it is doing to the lowest (if i heeln mid tho broadest of Kies. Ever) since then wrro shoes and instability j in fashions the style has lteeti going i front ono extreme to tho other. For sumo hundred of years low heels and high heel have Wn battling for the mastery very much as they are doing now, with sometimes one in favor and sometimes the other. At first, however, change of fashion wera in the t"cs and not in tl heels. For a long time thero wrs no heels, hut the bies were ridiculous enough to make i up for all tho heel alisurdtties which their wearers might have thought of but didn't. And right here, for tho lienefit of tho sex which is snppoeed to lie fashion bestridden as the other never was, I want to step aside long enough t tell how a chronicler of tlm Fnnrtneuth century remarks that the shoes of tho liuliea did not begin to compare in extravagance ex-travagance of shaie with thowt worn bv men. Another writer, of the time of j Richard II, grumble about the faehions ! of shoe in this way: "Their shoes and pattens are snouted and piked, inoM than a finger long, crooking upwards, which they call crakowea, resembling devil's claws, and fastened to the knees ' with chains of gold and silver." A little later these crakowea were forked and wero worn almost as long again ns tho feet, "so long suontod," one old writer declares, "tliat wo can hardly kneel in Und' house." I gi a picture of the toe part the crakowe of ono of tlnwishor. .Sometimes they wero stuffed with tow or moss to keep them properly ! curled, but usually they bad tolsschalned j to tho knees to mako walking pleasant I or Diwsible, I 3 winrii mi all rr pn? 1. High SJirt Frenehy. 3. Mtslluin and populsr. I. Lew sail stunlv. And thero are others who declare with just as much calmness and conviction that the conimonsenso shoo has placed its heel on tho neck of all other styles; that tho corset is going the way of the hoopMtirt, and that the combination suit and tho divided skirt having combined their forces aro entering upon an undivided undi-vided field of feminine favor. You can take whioherer one of these views you prefer, or ymt can hold each ono on alteronto weeks. Tho newspaper reader is pretty sure to pee ono or tho other triumphantly advanced about thnt often. Hut there is ouo safo ruin of credence cre-dence for all articles of t his character. If they contain merely assertion, with no facts gathered together to back the assertion, they prove but one t hingthat the writer wears tho kind of clothing whose rapid progresn or whose (inn hold on feminine affection shn champions. For myself, I liavo been particularly ' ill amused and somnlimes mysriflcd by the frequency and contradictory character of these articles on tho subject of shoes. If one Week I read an article which convinced con-vinced mo that the feminine world was teetering aronnd ou hoels of the highest and Frouc.hiest description, and that nothing less than tho stake could induce it to lay them aside, the next week 1 would be forced to lielieve just as firmly that the French hoels were a thing of tho past and that femininity was thumping alxiut in shoos whoee soles and hoels wero of almost equal thickness. 8o one day before the sntniuer exodus began I star tod out to do a little census taking and get at tho truth of tho matter. I wanted to find out just what kind of shoes women really aro wearing. It was a Saturday afternoon, when the fashionable part of Broadway wns crowded with well dressed women, and a brisk breeze whisked its way down tho street and aided my investigations. From Iiroadway I parted up Fifth avo-nno avo-nno through tho region of tho city's most exclusive wealth and faahion. From Fourteenth street np to Sixtieth I counted count-ed and clasiified all the feminine heels. They fell easily into three distinct classes after tho manner of the accompanying illustrations very low, medium nnd very high. And out of every hundred heels there wero on an average about ten very high ones, thirty very low and sixty medium. me-dium. The figures aro roughly stated, but they are very near the percentage developed by the count. Except on upiier Fifth avenue, where tho possessors of the heels belonged to that class whoso nttire is always reckoned reckon-ed an tho very glass of fashion, tho medium me-dium heel was tho favorite. But there the lowest and r.tnrdit of heels nnd th broadest and thickest of soles were the niht. For a dozen blocks on this upper Fifth avenue only two pairs of French lns-ls were w en and they were both on the feet of nurco maids. The medium hd pawned through quite a variety of form, sometimes being so low and so upright of bearing as to approach ap-proach very near the cununon senso type, and sometimes being so tall and so siatitcd that it uean d the other extreme. ; It was noticeable, though, that a nia-j nia-j jority of these heU showed the former ' tendency. Xrill another fact my love of candor comis-ls met') chronicle, and that is that about half the vtneri who wore i high heels limpod and half the remain-I remain-I der. though they walked firmly, wore pained and preoccupied looks npon their ; faces. j After tliat tonrof investigation I de cid'-d that French heels, for street wear at least, are waning. The increus".! ! nnmber of low heeled and br.;ad soled , l.os that aptK ars in near'.r a?l the shops HOVK HOUR RKCEMT TYrEM. I A ehoplna. . la the but century. 10. Ten j ynsrs later. ! But in the latter part of tho Fifte.mth century there was a sudden and violent change, nnd shoes became, as shirrt and broad and stumpy toed as tlM-y had previously pre-viously Iwen long aud narrow and snouted. snout-ed. Tho sumptuary laws whiuU had forbidden hsig tons to all but the rich and noblo were supplemented by new ones, forbidding shoes ofextnmie breadth and shortness to any but these favored classes. The next century brought high heeled shoes, and along with them tho "cho-pinos," "cho-pinos," which as Instnimonts of torture must have ont outdone everything else which was ever invented for woman's deforming. They were brought to Fjig-land Fjig-land from Venice, and what whkmes of general popularity, they failed to achieve they made amends for in individual in-dividual height, The nobler a lady's rank the higher she wore her chorines, and tho more lmpnwdbln it liecame for h'T to take a step alone. Tho lady who put chopines under her f'-t looked very much taller when sho stood tip, but if she attempted to stand or walk alone she quickly changed from tall to long. The chopines didn't last long, but the high heel that came in at the same time were receive t with d-dight, and grew higher and Wither until a little more than a cent nry ao, when French fashions fash-ions in Jmghind fell into a sudden disfavor dis-favor and hl,h h-els went out with a snap. But the low heebvi era lasted only about ten yers, and ever since then the battie between the to has been waged and has rented tot, with sometimes some-times one the victor and smietim4 tha other. Jnst now it looks to me as if the high h'-e.l were g-tting jnst a little the j -crst of it. I Ffr'itr.ftce Finch Kkixy. wye OLI TIME SHOES. 4 Aeraiowe S. lXfyrt, waiioBx, Iidlffln IS W-r-nlit emtjjj. ". A mvUt tiiw,-e. jroes to prove tha same thing. There is one large shp in w York which |