Alabama state intelligencer., 1831-07-16
A NEW FASHION.
|" Fashion in every thing bears sovereign sway,
 C Fen wigs and neri ,Hirs have had their day. '


 "E'en wigs and perwigs have had their day"
 The pen is wielded almost exclusively by the stronger sex, in the popular perlodicals, and hence we find in them 50 many wltt-cisms launched against the frailtes of the fair, and even their dress made the theme ot ridicule. We do not intend to enter the arena as their champion, for we must confess that they dc sometimes so abominably outrage nature, by dishguring sthe human form and face divine, that we care not how keen may be the lash or how heavy the blow of the sati,ist, if he can but demolish by it the artificial helps which mar the beautiful proportions of the temples they were designed to decorate.-- But 1t is not the female sex alone that invite animadverson, by extravagant departures from that natural simplicity of dress which no labored art can equa-that beauty, which is "most adorned" when it is least encum- bered with superhuous frippery and tinsel or nament The fashions ofmen-( grown men, as Mir M'Dufie would say)-frequently ind- cate an cffeminacy of mind and depravity of taste, which.would be unaccountable, did we not witness every day the influence which fashionable costume, however ridiculous, ex- erts in the relations of social life. Although it is sometimes so oufre as to change a man to a monkey, (the tail excepted yet it tends to raise him in the estimation tf a certain class at least head or two taller than he would otherwise be, contrary to the order of nature, which places the baboon tribe below the human race. Times have wonderously changed, if there was ever any truth in the assertion of the Poet, Worth makes the man." for now, most indubitably, the Tailor, with the aid of due quantum of buckram and padding, makes him.-Se much by way of preface-Iather long one we admit, to the short story it is designed to introduce The Erquisites of Philadelphia, it is said, have recently, in their great ingenuity, (aided we presume by caucus of Tailors,) disco vered a new plan to attract observation to their beautiful persons. They have deter mined to discard the use of 7caistcoats, that tkey may display to advantage handsomely worked shirt bosom, without frills, and pair of parti-colored suspenders. This new in vention will certainly promote economy, and in warm weather, as northern paper sug- gests, contribute to the comfort of the wearer. But we doubt whether either of these con- siderations entered into the views of its inven- tors. An anecdote is told, somewhere in the Annals of Fashion, of lady who brought short petticoats into vogue, in order to display her beautiful ancle,-and of another, High Priestess at the Altar of the fickle Monarch, who, being afflicted with hump on her back, set her wits to work and was lucky enough to discover some mode of dress by which this de- formity was effectually concealed. Aud we suspect that the buck who has suggested the destruction of the vest, was influenced by a motive somewhat similar to these, in his cru sade against this most becoming piece of male costume.-Mrs Opie, in her " Illustrations of Lying" denounces the devotees of fashion, who walk abroad in the world, tricked out so 1-G-. .sto embodied falsehoods-as pirates, sailing under false colors, and drawing innocent victims into their net by display of charms and beauties, which, seemingly natural, are put on and off as regularly as day and night succeed each other. We leave the reader to ruminate on Mrs Opie's opinion, and-to do as he pleases hereafter, in the premises.
 Lunchburg Virginian.