The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-02-05
HE FAS HONS
tdwlnter StyIes-The Empire Bon
net-cloaks and Furs-Dress
Goods m o d Q - Evening
Dresses-Head-Dresses.


daming banners athwart the morning sky, but in
the most lachrymose and dismal of moods; the
estal First of January looking damp contempt
IN the gay drawingrooms and neecy toilets dis
)layed IN It's honor. The round of days since
hen has been hardly more cheerful. Grey skies
and chilly rains, sharp seet, and an occasional
petulance of snow on the part of this eldest
daughter of the year, have tempted to inglorious
ease in the artificial summer of the drawing
room. The Amazons who walk every day, and
defy the treacherOus and immitigable horrors of
our streets, come home, indeed, with chilly feet,
and noses blushing celestial-rosy red, but elate
with the fine intOxication which deep draughts
of oxygen induce.
Dear, wise virgins, who thus keep your lamp
of health trimmed and burning, this daily out
door season is excellent, even though your peri
patetic school of philosophy be not of the high
est and you lounge down Broadway only TO be
teen and to meet the bodies comm frae the
aewn. Natures romances are great deal better
shan Mrs. Henry Woods, and gathering new
forces from the vital air a W iser occupation than
making crochet slippers and vases called d ecal-
comanie. But why Will you put Folly's cap on
Wisdoms head, and take that uninviting prone
made in purple and fine line, with rings on your
fingers and bells on your toes?
Does nobody read the Tribune, or is that
prophet not without honor save in his own
country? Line upon line preoept upon pre-
cept, here little, and there little have we
INSISTED that the trst law of good taste is fitness
Lacking that, silk of Shiraz seems but dull OF
hue, and diamonds lose their luslre. OF thirty
women whom one shall meet on Broadway, to-
DAY, not one will be well dressed. The pearl
r9lored popn, with its protuse trimmings, this
eilk with the blue of Heaven caught in its
shining web, this gorgeous fabric wherein the
Invisible spirit of wine sits imprisoned, these
noire-antques whose tender green Is like the
meadoW-mosses, these countless robes of black,
palmer only in color, and enhanced in cost by
garniture Of jet, and steel, and velvet-why,
{. these are toilets for Compeigne, or Sandring-
ham House.
Oh Mesdames, you make the artistic heart
ache! While we experience January thaw,
what do you with your best apparel on? You
point triumphantly to the pretty lestoons of your
arapsry and the gay peticoat But &r5t3p passing
maid, dragging foul skirts, brushes by you, leav-
ing a fatal stain upon. your shining robes,
aud the melting snow above the caves drops
alike on the just and on the unjust. Then you go
home in an omnibus, your dainty skirts sweeping
against the vile steps, and resting, perchance,
on the unworthy knees OF an ltinerant vender of
old clothes, whose ten cents entltle him to the
same consideration at the hands OF the -tage
company with yourselves, or President johnson.
ii the streets be not wet they are dusty; Tor
New York has no knowledge OF that nautical
experience described as between wind and
water" Then the impalpable atoms ground
from the pavements by ponderous wheels,
fill the air, slit into your dresses, and cannot be
expelled.
Excellent daughters of the Republic, the
wealth OF Cr9sus would not acquit you of this
vulgar waste. You may gtoTd to dissolve pearls
for your wine cup but if you do it, you are van
dals; and you may afford TO destroy your ward.
robe for whim, but il you do it while barefooted
babies sweep the snowy crossings, and implore
you for the penny you find it 100 much trouble
to bestow, you win shining rank among that
large and loyable class of our tellow-beings
called Snobs.
For the street and especially such streets, and
in such climate as ours, plain, serviceable
fabrics of wool are the only wear. They are SC
pretty, now, as to satisfy taste as we'll as goot
sense Stout waterproof-the heavy French
linsey rich Empress cloth, and Lupln's merinoes
falling in folds whose grace is inimlable, art
the best materials, and all for the excellent ser
vice they render, are economical in the end
though costly at hrst. The French ladies, tireC
OF pins which tear the dress, and strings which
unite, or are never in the right place, and page
which wrinkle and injure the SKIRT and al
other known means of elevatlng their drapery
have abandoned all alike and substitute a dis
tinct dress for outdoor wear whose festoon
and sashes are sewed on the petticoat, and Cal
DIV DO chance be disarranged.
The objection of the expense involved in tn
additional dress, which is tit only tor walking, i
partly set aside by the consideration that tn
skirt is so short and narrow as to require bu
little material and partly by the fact that il
patient merit takes all the spurns Of the un
worthy streets, to The great gam OF costlie
apparel. The petticoat not quite four yard
round falls to the ankles. The dress, of tn
same width, is looped at least six inches aboy
the hem of the pettcoat. The cost of the sui
in wide material, would, therefore, be bu
tTihing and the saving Of time, and trouble
and temper, involved in the daily testooning
XoluminOus folds on base not half wide enoug
TO receive them, relief tor which the sex wi
be grateful.
While the French Court wore its customar
suits of solemn black in memory of the burie
Majesty of Belgian, the walking dress Of I'll
ladies was black poplin, iestooned over short pc
ticoats of the same sombre fabric, whose folds 4
crinolne expanded. Whether this tenuity wf
but freak which the fantastic melancholy
the moment prompted or whether it is anotht
of the faint and iar-oh prophecies of the banis
ment of hoops, which have 81 long hoated IN IL
fashionable air, no oracle can tell. The highe
London authority pronognces only mario Nv al
plain skirts "distinguished,n but, in the san
breath, 'from the body OF contraction, plucl
the very soul, by announcing that this chan'
certainly began in London and not in Parl
Moreover, the VIDE gored dresses are more pop
lar than ever, the costliest materials being mat
thus. And it is said that the lovely Empre
grows stout and will not Telnquish the arl
trary hoop, which, if it does not improve ug
figures, at least iorbIds beautiful ones to asse
their superiority.
With the short dresses the question OF boot1
becomes important. In the street, plain blaC
kid boots, buttoned or laced above the ankl
are the proper attire for the feet. Nothing
more unbecoming, unht, than the lar
rosette so often seen on them, which makes I'll
foot look broader, becomes frayed and draggle
and has rghtful place only on a slipper, whe
ii covers the sharp junctuTe of the shoe with q
stocking. For full dress, boots OF the eXa
shade OF the robe, slippers Of white or black Xxi
or satin, or of bronze, and white satin CATERS
a new design are worn. The latter have, wi
the trim compactness of a boot, the appearan
OF slipper, which is so universally unbecomin
By q quilting OF ribbon, and an ingenlo
arrangement OF clocked silk over rose-color
Al. IL, lfA .,,I.- 49,