Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1858-11-20
Rev. ParsOn Cooke on Female Extra.
VaSaMce i'm Dress.

Rev. DIR. Cooke, of the Puritan Recorder,
has been spending season at Saratoga, and
liter seeming out and exposing all the heresies
md fOlieS in religion that come to the surface
there, seems to have extended his explorations
into the wardrobes of the ladies and becomes
properly shocked and indignant at his discov-
cries He brings up his heavy artillery to bear
on this subject with all the force with which he
is accustomed to attack the latest developed
Beecherism
Indeed, the fashionable lady at the Spring,
comes to a task of dressing which is not to be
envied. Most of her walking hours, even if
she have no hops or balls to dress for, are la
borious hours. For dressing is her substan-
tive employment it is for this she came to
The Spring. So she must on first waking in
the morning dress for her wal k to the Springs,
then she must come home and put ON anoth
er harness for breakfast Then she must I'M
harness and harness up wholly anew for din
ner; then for tea, all the labor of changing
her cumbrOus harness must be repeated
This often involves more than she can do
alone
The hair dresser must be called in, and
there must be toll of currying as well as
Harvesting. This is an expensive as well as
laborious work. Judge of this from a single
case. A lady was here, not long since, and
when about to leave told the landlady, in all
sOberness, as if it was matter of course,
that she had been here thirty days, and that
she had only thirty changes of dress, and
therefore she could stay here no longer for
she could not wear the same dress twice i'll
the same place. She must now, as a matter
of economy, go to Newport, where, with the
same dresses she could spend thirty days
more. This is fair sample of the fashiona-
bles here. Every summer brings thousands
of Just this class of miserable creatures
slaves of absurd fashions-here.
Think moment of the expense Of such an
outfit for the Sprii gs. The expense of her
thirty dresses with all the laces and jewelry
to match, could not be less than three thou
sand dollars. That in her dress for thirty
DAVIS must have cost her one thousand dollars
a day. And among all the visitors at the
Springs, during the season, there cannot be
less than three thousand so extensively dres-
sed If so, the aggregate expense OF equipping
these butterflies for one season, must be about
nine millions of dollars, which is very con-
siderable fraction of the United Stat Gov
ernment 1t is wonder that so many of our
merchants fail =? True, many of these women
are the wives and daughters of pill peddl rs
and yeast vendors, and the like, who can af
ford it. But many of them, also, are exhauS-
ting the capital of our regular merch-
ants. But the absurdity of this bust
ness. 1t more fully appears, if we re-
fleet how much of this extravaganza
looks to marriage; and how it defeats Its
end. Daughters are put on this course of
extravaganza to make them the most attract
i've candidates for marriage; and the affect is
to render their marriage, to any young man
of sense, impossible. Young men, who have
their fortunes yet to make, cannot safely mar
nv woman who has been trained to spend a
fortune in single year.