RELIEF: New Raiment

For 100 years the indigent aged who live in New York City’s municipal poor houses on Staten and Welfare Islands, have been issued standard raiment. In a century it has grown almost as quaint as the outfits of Beefeaters in London’s Tower. For men it consists of high shoes with elastic inserts like Congress gaiters and cotton suits whose intrinsic shapelessness is a true reflection of the style of nightshirt in which they have to sleep. For women it consists of coarse cotton mother hubbards, black cotton stockings, shoes like the men’s, floppy sunbonnets. To both sexes the official dress gives an air of covered wagon days, and to the city’s present 3,175 old paupers, who daily look across from their island homes to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, it is a sore trial.

Last week there was jubilation in the city’s poorhouses. The Department of Hospitals announced that henceforth paupers will have a choice of nightshirts or pajamas, suits cut like tailors’ advertisements and shrink-proof, shoes of 1938; that pauperesses will get flowery percales, felt hats for winter, straws for summer, stockings still cotton but in stylish tan. As a special treat, garters will be issued to both sexes. Reason: the city discovered that the paupers’ clothes were so old-fashioned they had to be made to order; it will be cheaper to buy modern clothes from stock.