New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-05-06

SOME ABsURDITIEs OF FASHION. "A late travel
If, in descending the Danube, was struck with
The crowd of new carriages on board the steam
7oat, and, on making inquiry, learned that they
we're destined for Bucharest. He was told that
avery Wallaehian gentleman, able to keep a
arriage at all, considered it Indispensable to
ave "a new one annually, whether the old one
vas worn out or not and that no carriage
would answer unless it was made at Vienna, and
transported by steamboat, that being the cost
lest method Of taking it to Bucharest.
We naturally laugh at the absurdity of
such fashion. and ask, with the traveller, why
coaches made at Bucharest, by manufacturers
rom Vienna, would not answer the purposes of
the Wallachians? Yet are not we Americans,
though far superior to the Waltachians general
" in civilization, guilty of fashionable fclhes
quite as ridiculous Is not Paris to US what
Vienna is to them2 We have actually seen
coaches from the French capital sold for prices
far above their WORTH simply because the pur-
chaser imagined they must be better than Amer
lean ones, though it is notorious to all familiar
with manufactures of this description, that no
ooach-makers in the world eque our own, in the
combined lightness and stability of their vehi-
cles OF all varieties.
So also in matters of dress. a French bonnet
will sell for twenty five dollars, when one made
here, upon the same pattern, and with similar
materials, will not bring halfthat sum. French
fashions are all the rage, no matter how absurd
few months ago, Louis Napoleon re-estab-
lished trains at court, and already our Would-be
arstocracy are wearing trains too. Frequently,
in initiating Partisan styles, we exaggerate them,
n apply them where they are entirely unsuita-
bic, and thus out-Herod Herod The lady of
Louisville, Kentucky, who appeared in the mud
dy streets there, the other day. wearing an enor-
nous train, which a little black page supported,
furnished an illustration of this. Instead OF
| copying the court fashion she only caricatured
it, The Empress Eugenia would no more think
Of wearing her court mantle in the street, than
she would of going up and down the Boulevards,
| with her crown on her head, like the queen in
| he story book. Another frequent example OF
| the absurd manner in which French fashions
| are applied here, is the wearing of carriage
dresses or carriage bonnets for promenade, or
the going out a-shopping, in the morning, in rich
| silks and dinner costume The attire OF the
Partisan lady is, at worst, suitable for the occa
| sion but American ladies copy Unfortunately
their foreign models.
| Throughout our whole social life may be seen
similar absurd limitations of European customs
| which being totally inapplicable to our condi-
| ton, make us the laughing stock of intelligen,
| Frenchmen. Our fashionable people eat, sleep
and rise up at hours suitable to an idle aristoc-
racy. and not at those indispensable to men in
| active business, as most of the heads of rich and
fashionable families are. Their amusements are
| those of ennuied drones, not those appropriate
| for over tasked merchants, manufacturers, OF
professional men. To dance half the night; tc
firt with other mems wives; and to go the round
of fashionable social follies generally, may an.
swer for class of hereditary mobiles, whose chic
object in life is to kill time but not for working
republicans, who have no leisure for srch Guilds
| play. Yet we continue to practice these modes
| Of so called recreation, denominated parties
merely because they are of foreign origin
| though actually they furnish no recreation al
/ all to grown up men women, but are, to speal
plainly, positive hores.
We might follow up the subject, and show
that, in scores of things, Americans are as alb
surd in their fashions as the Wallachians, Wit
will not have a new coach, unless it is brought
from Vienna by steamboat While we laugh a
Others it is as well to look at ourselves, and SCI
if there may not fairly be laughter raised at oul
expense also philadelphia Ledger.
Mr. HARRISON ANswoRrH -Adverting to the
very minute details often related of the pecu
liarities of literary men, Diogenes says:
s. Mr.. Harrison Ainsworth is a great histori
cal student, as all who have read his works mus
be aware. He is thoroughly up in English his
tory from the time of Brutus and his three sons