Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1843-06-09
WOMAN AND DRESS.
HARRY FRANCO.

An article in the last Democratic Review,
upon Tea-Partes, from which we extract the
following remarks. Let our fair readers be
angry as they will, there is much truth in them
Dress is the great staple Of woman's
Thoughts; she talks of it on all OCCASIONS; she
medtates on it in all places, and for sake of it
she makes her greatest sacrifices. She goes TO
church TO display her own dress and to criticise
the dress of her neighbors. She goes to balls
and tea parties for the same purpose; she walks
up and down Broadway for no other reason
IT is the great point when she marries, and the
selection Of her wedding gown costs her a
thousand times more anxiety then the choice
of her husband; and when she looses him, her
first thought is her mourning, not her weeping
Her children are objects of great interest To her,
because she can dress them TO suit her fancy,
and the little unconscious inn1cents are made to
todde about the streets as a kind of advertise
vnent of their mothers taste. Do you doubt
this! Then walk down Broadway some sun
shiny morning and look at the little bits of hu-
mainly which dot the sidewalks the whole
length of that famous avenue; decorated with
all the fantasies which velvet and gold cord are
capable of creating. Do you doubt the con-
trolling thought Of woman' Look at the pop
ular Magazines of the day! Not one of them
can be supported without the appendage of
fashion-plate; but with il they flourish like will
lows by the water courses, though they may
have nothing else to recommend them. There
are some half dozen of these monthly distrib-
utors of ladies' fashions and literature, varying
in their circulation from 10 to $4,000 copies
and they all thrive and bring money to their
publishers; while it is a fact too well known to
need penning, that no mere literary periodical
has ever hourshed in this country, although
there have been many established and sustain
ed by the very highest talent in the nation,
(the Democratic Review for example,) aItho'
they have been continued in an enduring faith
that the public sentiment would come right in
the end.
As no magazine publishes fashionable plates
for men, and as no man, excepting lk-jobber,
can be supposed TO care copper about the
fasons of the genter sex, this inordnate appe-
tite for intelligence in regard to dress must of
necessity be laid exclusively 10 the door of the
ladies'. Their patronage of the magazines
proves nothing for literature, but, on the con-
trary, lit is the strongest evidence they could
give that they have no sympathes to bestow
upon literary exercises, since they will not SUBJ
scribe for work which does not contain pat
tern for new bodice or lace cap. If you
pass through Broadway on pleasant morning,
you see a great number Of daily carriages,
drawn by horses, and you wonder on what ex-
petition thay can be bound you watch their
stopping-places, and you find them at The doors
OF mantua-makers' and milIiners' shops. They
are kept for the express purpose of carrying la
dies, when they go in search Of dresses, aud
when they go to display them, either in the
ball or house of prayer, AT church they make
very grand display of the latest importations
from Paris, while their horses and their coach
men are waiting on the out side.