I would not suggest that Shanghai women are going in for either expensive clothes or jewellery just now, and as for spotting "Ladies" end "Others" in Nanking Road, well, we have had bigger things to worry about lately than social distinctions, so this will be the last problem to occupy cur minds, but all the same, Gressmakers are more hopeful, Yates Road is distinctly brighter, tailors are smiling and women are showing interest in matters of adornment.
One tailor, anticipating the spring rush, showed me a very smart array of styles the other morning, but alas, his Chinese hand was rather over apparent. "What side catchee this fashion?" I asked him of a gown that d possibilities, but overmuch adornment. "Oh, Mississie" he replied, "that belong Palis model pi ture, but, you see, I have puttee this bow, this hatton to make look-see more handsome, and when our tailors, bless their hearts, start to improve upon Paris, the results are invariably arresting, to say the least of' them.
Bubbling Well Road and Avenue Joffre, also dress centres, are showing signs of better life, and foreign dressmakers mean us to present a well-dressed front to a sympathetic world, This is all to the good, for though there is as yet no busin boom, we must allow that our forebears' were wise when they used to aver that io be poor and seem poor was the "devil all o'er,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.