The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1867-02-06
The Ladies.

| The Ladies'.
1t is great pleasure to us to select,
and sometimes to write articles that may
be of interest to the balmoral sex. Below
| will be found a few passages of wit and
| sense from the graceful pen of the Lady
Assistant of the New York Sunday Times
one of the best journals in America
These are clipped from her "Parlor and
Sidewalk Gossip column.
CHANGES.
1t is long time since we have had any
prolific and charming of subjects-the
fashions. Now, a good doctor, having
first administered a pill, afterwards re
stores one with bit Of swcctmeat. But a
| quack-that's me-giyes the jelly first and
| the bitterness afterwards. So, let us have
little gossip that shall seem liks our
selves. An opportunity is here giyen for
the "brethren' to withdraw-they will
please close the door y Well! Are not
the short dresses a manifest blessing p
What should we have done without them
during this mealy condition of the streets ?
In the fall they looked very odd, and more
than one fair wearer felt as if she had for
gotten something in her attire. 1t seemed
as if We were returning to second child
hood, wearing such dresses as we stepped
into in that intermediate season before
long dresses were considered suitable for
our advanced condition. But we became
accustomed to one change following an
other-thanks to the adaptability of our
natures. We are now ''taking comfort -
Into the stages we go with an assurance
that nobody pulled US into seat nor are
we occupying more than ten cents worth
of room. We get out just as TRANQUILITY
not a care as to catching on the step and
as we wade with unfettered feet through
the drifted paths, behold us thankful "
IT'S true the new dress sadly lacks style.
After the flowing grace of long dresses,
and the floating effect Of the immensely
expanded skirt, it seems unpoetic to make
ones way like recent discovery observed
in detail but for all that, it seems like a
release to be walking about comparatively
free and decidedly all to ones self. What
ever we possessed of grace or beauty, we
shared generally, it must be confessed SO,
having pleased the artistic world, we are
certainly entitled to take comfort now, in
our own way. The knowing ones among
fashionable modistes say that by spring a
long dress, or looped dress in the street
will be a conspicuous oddly, but that
dresses for the house are to compensate
for the breyity Of those worn in the
street.
MISTAKE.
To return for a moment to the subject
of fairs and lotteries. Somebody has in
augurated custom which has nothing in
the world in it to recommend, and very
putting into the hands of young girls and
little girls, tickets for fairs and ratles, and
sending them into the families Of their lit
tie mrtes, and probably wherever else
they may think to go, to dispose of them.
Often times these little things, whom you
expect to find as sensitive rs the mimosa,
you will hear arguing and entreating, sand
as importunate as a wandering china-deal-
err. 1t may be thoughtlessness, or, at the
worst, an ill,judged expedient but what
mistake it isl Who can replace the
bloom upon the peach, or who can restore
the beautiful ''shrink' of a little girl when
self assurance and pertness have usurped
its place? What amount of personal
beauty can equal the attractivcness of girl
ish timidity?
ABOUT HAIR-pREssING.
They are building the front hair in inn
mense mounds above the forehead over in
Paris-crimped, frizzed and tangled in ev-
cry imaginable sort of disorder, and deco
rated with shining leaves, butterflies, and
for ausht know, radiant bugs and fire.
flies. The back hair has Suffered change
into something rich and strange" that
change being great reduction in the di-
mansions of the waterfall. That "appur-
tcnance thereunto appertaining," is now
of feeble size, and is located ut the very
summit of endurance, the peak Of the
head. Built up in front like huge
dormcr projection, and tapered off behind
to such proportional insignifcance, the
expression of the whole structure must be
to the last degree. Before long
the hideous. fashion will be creeping over
here and then, where will be the fifty
four-forty OF our bonncts? A ribbon
wrought with buglcs will be all that there
is room for. Meantime, there is nothing
to do but wait.
CoNnvPR -Rainc IpSirnus nf chonpinr