The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-10 00:00:00

CHEVALIER COMING AND THE LADIES.

(From the New York Herald.)

The knights of old were in the habit of wasting a
great deal of valuable time by defending at sword's
point the reputation cf some particular damsel to
whom they inclined. The Chevalier Cushing goes
further, and enters the list to do battle for all the
ladies. He declares that they are not at all respon-
sible for the present financial revu'sion ; that their
flounces and furbelows are only a bagatelle in the
question of exports and imports ; that their crino-
line did not stop the Erie Railway ; that their silks
did not break the Ohio Life and Trust Company ;
that their kid gloves and Lilliputian bonnets bad
nothing to do with the stoppage of the great dry
goods houses ; and further, that their style of dress
is quite the correct thing in every way. And he, the
said Chevalier, makes public proclamation that he
will defend this issue after the good old chivalric
custom. Hear ye, all men ! the Chevalier, armed
at all points, his vizor down, his lance in rest,
awaits the combat. The Knight of Salamanca
again is in the field.
Now, we do not yield to any man in devotion to
the fair sex, but we are bound to say that nearly
all our countrywomen who have money or credit,
or could obtain either, have been for several years
shamefully extravagant ; that they are almost re-
sponsible for the excessive imports of articles of
luxury, which imports have drained our specie
reserve and loaded down our warehouses with
articles which are of no earthly use ; and that they
are even now spending too much money for articles
they do not need, but which they buy simply on
account of a decline in price. Let us see the
r fie-tires
The total value of the imports—for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1856, was 314,639,942 dols., of
Iwhich, for articles of luxury consumed by women,
we have spent 43,624,558 dols. Forty-three
millions of dollars ! That is equal to the whole
product of the gold mines in California for one year,
and that would have more than sufficed to save us
from the crisis. Of this sum 31,218,766 dols.
were paid for silks and manufactures of silks ;
6,376,853 .dols. for laces and embroideries ;
shawls, 2,529,771 dole. ; gloves, 1,344,550 dols. ;
furs, 864,731 dole. ; jewellery, 844,630 dols. ; silk
and worsted piece goods, 1,336,247 dole. We ex-
pended two millions more for silk than for sugar,
and so on. We have omitted many items which
would tell against the women, as it may be urged
that men consume a portion of the articles above
enumerated. The articles omitted—bijouterie, ar-
tificial flowers, French shoes and boots, fancy ar-
ticles, and a thousand and one fripperies that make
up that wonderful mystery, a fashionable woman's
attire—would more than balance the account.
There is a little item of 42,000 dols. for perfumed
soap, which is quite a good index to the whole thing.
Again, it must be remembered that these figures
are taken from the Treasury reports, and that the
articles are valued at something under the whole-
sale rate, while our fair countrywomen are charged
upon all such matters as laces at least 100 per cent.
profit. A set of laces which cost in Paris 20 dols.
could not be bought here in flush times for less
than 60 dols. It should further be remembered
that 20,000 or 30,000 of our women either
i aside abroad or go to Europe nearly every sum-
mer. The amount of rich stuffs—silks, satins, vel-
vets, shawls, and jewellery—which they run
through the Custom-house free is something enor-
mous—not less than a million dollars' worth a-year ;
and all luxuries of not the slightest use to anybody
on the face of the earth. We have seen on board
one ship a lady enter as her personal baggage 20
large trunks. No princess in the world would have
so much.

I The travelled American cannot fail to have no-
ticed the marked distinction between the prome-
nade dresses of our women and of those abroad.
The French and English women go out to walk in
plain, neat, serviceable dresses, while ours drag
their heavy silks in the gutters. American women
are guilty of shameful extravagance and bad taste
in wearing fur walking dresses robes—which are
made for the carriage or the drawing-room.
More we might allege, for the subject is of the
deepest importance ; but, statistically, quite enough
has been proved. The worst fact of all remains to
be stated. As far as the question of fashion goes
—how a robe shall be cut, or the exact size of a
hat, or the measure of circumference to be allowed
to a skirt—that is no great matter. If women desire
to make themselves the targets of coarse jokes, it is
not for us to deny them that luxury. But we will
put to the Chevalier Cushing and those who think
Kith him the plain proposition that, as the women
of America are placed. on a pedestal but a little below
the angels, as they toil not (we mean who are guilty
of extravagances such as we have noted), neither do
they spin, the men have to pay allthebills—whether
so much money can be spent for luxuries and be a
mere bagatelle in the question of exports and im-
ports. We do not know that crinoline and kid
gloves broke the Ohio Life and Trust Company—
probably the president and directors can tell better.
But the majority of our women in good circum-
stances are drags upon their husbands instead of
being helpmeets to them. If one does her duty
simply it is trumpeted through all the papers as
an example of Spartan virtue. The inference is
plain that such examples are almost unprecedented.
Women rarely throw away their own money ; no
one is more prudent and careful than a woman who
has a fortune in her own rights but once her taper
fingers close on another's cheque-book the grasp of
Hercules could not unloose them.

The Chevalier Cushing asks, " Did the women
break the dry goods houses ? Yes. Tue women iu
the flush times of '54-'55, spentt w ice as much money
as they ought ; they were capricious and difficult to
plesse—they demanded new styles—the rhagasins
of Paris and' the manufactories of Lyons and Valen-
ciennes and Brussels were ransacked for them. The
importations were double what they should have
been. There was nothing to pay for them with.
The crisis came. The houses broke, and their soun-
tors groan with stuffs for which there is no market.
Nowhere in the world are the women dressed so
badly and so expensively as in America. When we
go abroad we are astonished by the simple morning
and promenade costumes of the daughters of the
English nobility—men with rent-rolls to which an
American fortune is a drop in the sea. A French
Countess, with a fixed income of 100,000/. a-year,
will not spend half so much on her dress as the wife
of a New York merchant whose business may give
him a profit of 10,000 dols. a-year, and may bring
him iu debt to double that amount. Let not the
Chevalier Cushin,‘ look at the vulgar display made
at Saratoga, and compare
Newport, or Cape May,
it with the modest attire of the aristocracy at Baden,
Brighton, or Biarritz. The fact is, our women take
French lorette fashions at second hand, and were
they so attired in a European city they would be
taken for what they seem to be rather than what
they are.

We trust that both the women of America and
their champion will think seriously of these things,
for they are the truth, and just now we must drink
the cup, however bitter it may be. We do not be-
lieve that there is anything radically wrong in our
women ; we are willing to believe with the sage of
Newburyport, that any one of them, were she pro-
perly instructed, would be "as prompt to please
by frugality as by luxury, and proud to make any
sacrifice of fashion at the voice of duty and love."
We believe that many good women in the land will
make this sacrifice cheerfully, for the sex is quick
enough in perception and prompt enough in action.
We hope they will all remember the lesson they are
now learning, but we cannot sincerely say that we
believe in the working of any such miracle. The
eleventh satire of Juvenal is as true now as it was
18 centuries ago.

MARRIAGE FACILITIE3 ONE HUNDIZED

TEARS AGO.