North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1867-04-24

Below will be found an able lecture
written by Mrs. Mary A. Alexander, o1
Fayete, Iowa, for the benefit of the Nc
Gregcr Charitable Association. 1t was read
in the Lecture Room of the Baptist Church
of scity on Tuesday evening, April 23d,
by Miss Jennie Calkins.
Ladies and Gentlemen Of INcGregor:
The prompt acceptance of a proposition,
made partly in earnest and partly in Jest,
to furnish lecture for the benefit of your
Charitable Association, has left me no al
ternaive but to comply with its conditions.
Hoping that the object to which the funds
of this Society are devoted may be a
sufficient excuse for any seeming egotism
on m. part, l invite your attention to a
few remarks upon a theme universally can
vasse(-charitably and uncharitably to my
sex-hat of Feminine Extravaganza and
FashDnablc Tyranny: an inexhaustible
theme if we regard the folios that have
been written upon it by learned and de-
yout men; the sarcasms levelcd at it by wits
and wiseacres; the satire of writer's from HUI
dibras to Thackery. And yet women are
ro,acn after all The world, too, grows
wiser in the opinion that the matter of
dress belongs more exclusively to her sex,
and whatever masculine minds may preach
or write upon this subject, the true re-
formers must rise from the ranks of wo-
manhood itself. And so much the better
if from the fashionable world they arise
to condemn its follies, its incipient vices,
and airy nothingness.
In the days when Whitfield and Wesley
let loose their fiery indignation against the
eHeminate luxury of the Church of Eng
land, converts from the highest styles of
fashionable extravaganza to the lowest
state of Quaker simplicity, were not rare.
Modern works of grace seldom reach to a
reformation of those little sins which make
up the sum of the confessional and in
reference to some modern styles, they
might have preached with still greater en-
phasis, "straight is the gate and narrow
is the wav!" Especially, could they
have seen the ladies in full costume sailing
up the aisles of our popular churches
The Shakers annihilate the esthctic in
dress. Mrs. Bloomer, in her well-meant
and partly successful effort to reform it,
appropriated style so nearly the proper
ty of the other sex that our own almost
wholly repudiated it. But where the Re
form failed, Fashion triumphed, and it is
to Mrs. Bloomer that we owe gratitude for
the suggestion Of skirts that will not act
as street-swcepers and serve as trains for
husbands and dangling beaux
to carry. l believe in the art of dress and
the general adoption of styles suited to
the seasons. 1t is the duty Of every hand
some woman to improve her beauty by
appliances of the toilette: it is
also the duty of every plain one to re-
deem, so far as possible, by the same aux
of personal adornment with which am at
variance. 1t is the exactions and taxa
tions of time and ingenuity to meet its
which lay so heavy burthen
upon woman herself and add to the sacri-
fees of men who must meet or sink be-
meath their expenses. l appeal to every
gentleman present-if they are not now
by our dashing styles of liv-
ing-to crowd into twenty years the labor
which it ought to take fifty to accomplish.
And for ahat3 To support, for a few
years, palatial grandeur, and crafty that
insensate love of display which has seized
hold upon the American people like an at
fever or plague. How few of
these men, who have neither the moral
power or courage to resist domestic ex-
travag gances, are able to make any provis-
ion for their families if Death leaves them
and fatherless? The number of
these are every day increasing, and our
systems of superficial education widen the
circle of helpless persons, who are con-
stantly thrown upon society as consumers
only, ready for any visionary scheme that
may keep them upon the upper surface.
The miseries and make-shifts of this float
ing population of gentility have not at all
the effect to diminish the number of those
who follow in their footsteps. Million
aires, sprung from the gas of an oil-well,
greet us everywhere, with their gaudy
pariphernalia of luxury and stunning
equipments. Novelties and absurdities
are created so rapidly that we have hardly
time to bury that of to-day till we are
called upon to usher in that of the NOR
row. The ladies are not alone in this
practice. Gentlemen rival each other in
the squanee.;.e Of, money in every pleas
ure. Ostentdhon mas given sA-s~i6eently
to educate our Southern brethren, where
Charity from the same hand has given not
one cent to save from the pangs of starva-
ton. We have banquets where twelve
guests consume as many dollars as would
keep family of hungry children for a
year. We have yachts to rival princely
purses. We have popular preachers whose
annual salaries would build IL respectable
church. Meanwhile, no price is too high
to pay for few locks Of foreign hair, to
grace or disgrace chignon, or foreign
shawl to set all our neighbors to envying.
0, that womanly enry Of another who has
that n have not! How it rank
les in the heart, and poisons society, and
sends it's barbed arrow into every circle of
friendship, to divide and estrange. Its
takes on as many forms as the
hues Of the chameleon, and is the prolific
cause Of the discontent and unhappiness
Of many embittered homes. In belong
ing to set, you take upon yourself the
Of its dress-standard to fall
below it is to incur disgrace and the super
,illious overlooking which women SO often
put on in their intercourse with each 9TH
sr. The fashionable world has its ''open
as well as the moral. In the lat
;er, qualities Of mind are the passwords
If admittance. In the former, the color
If a ribbon, the stamp of glove, makes
,r unmakes the aspirant for conventional
distinction. Yet whoever has reached the
lizzy heights of leader of the fashions,
must sit as uneasily on her throne as
queen Victoria when Fenians are abroad,
or our Fashion Queen never knows how
soon French fickleness may take on anoth-
II goddess. Still would she rather obey
han lose caste, or submit to be called odd,
u, what is still more to be dreaded. be-
lind the times.
am not one of those who deprecate the
Talue of fashionable women. Though
claiming no such pretensions, and very
ar from desiring to deserve them, may
'ay that this class of our sex are merci-
essly treated by masculine and feminine
critics of their position. But because I
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