Women's Feet Growing Larger

WOMEN'S FEET GROWING LARGER

Is the Verdict of Those Who Fit Them

COMMON SENSE USED

By the College girl and She Goes In For Comfort in Footwear

"A pretty foot," says Goethe, not only is a continual joy, but it is the one element of beauty that defies the assaults of time. The Ann Arbor girl may seek for consolation in the poet, but the practical shoe dealer laughs at the sentiment and tells you women's feet are growing larger, and the average sized shoe for the Ann Arbor woman is 5 1/2, and small at that. "The girl who slips her foot into a number two shoe, is one out of fifty," says John Wahr; "we fit three of that size in a year," says Al Donahue; "we don't order that number for ladies," said Leo Gruner; and one, bolder than his fellows, asserted that the woman who thought she was wearing a two, had been fitted, unconsciously, with a three, so as not to hurt her feelings.

"Everybody used to try to wear a 2 1/2," said George Miller, "but now we keep No. 9 in stock, and it would surprise you to know the people who wear them. Ten years ago they didn't make a 9, except for the south."

In Wahr's window, last summer, was displayed a No. 14 shoe, called the "Southern Beauty," which is worn by the colored mammies. It was probably the largest shoe that was ever in Ann Arbor, and was not for sale.

"Women with city bred feet require smaller shoes," was the verdict of the Puritan Shoe Co. This is due to the fact that they avail themselves oftener of a street car. But in Ann Arbor where people walk, the size of the foot is said to have enlarged two sizes beyond that of her Detroit sister.

The college girl in particular, is made an example of what comfort, common sense, and pedestrianism has done in this direction, and though she uses her feet as though she knew what they were made for, she has sacrificed forever the "fall of their fairy tread."