Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1869-05-04
Correspondence.
OUR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENCE.
WASHINGTON, d. G., Apr. 20, 80.

THE WOMENS DRESS RETURN CONNENIioN'
A National Women's Dress Convention
assembled here last evening. A good
many sensible things we're said. DR.. Mary
Z. Walker, presided, and made some re-
marks. DR.. Lydia S, Hasbrook was the
principal speaker. DR.. Hasbrook' S husband
was present. Both husband and wife have
been newspaper folks. The convention will
hold no longer than this evening. / may
make a synopsis of what is said both eve
nlngs another time.
1t is astonishing that this convention
should be needed to call attention to the
undisputed evils of the prevailing female
dress. Our American women arc so gen.
orally broken in health, that it has become
a national habit with us to turn our eyes
across the water and sigh for the health of
other nations. But we are mistaken in
the supposed immunity of European wo-
men. ] have paid some attention to this
comparison. | haG heard so much about
the inferiority of the American women in
this respect, that when l got abroad, per-
haps stimulated by little national pique,
| thought l would try and see how much
truth there was in it. From the testimo-
ny of physicians and from all sources of
information, became well convinced that
the principal advantage the nations of
Western Europe possessed, lay with their
lower classes of women who, by poverty
and class distinctions, had always escaped
slavery to fashion in dress. Functional
difficulties and diseases everywhere abound.
We are deceived by their plumper physi-
qucs, and in less sunny climates than
ours, by fairer compilations. But they
beat us in having a vast majority of their
women--the poor-prevented by their
poverty and the rules of society from at
tempting to dress finely; whereas with us
the poorer they are the harder they strive
at 1t.
Now, what shall BIO done that it IS prac-
ticable to do? That is the question. That
no degree of bad taste is an insuperable
objection to any form of dress, is abun-
dainty proved by the opposite vagaries
adopted from time to time in conven-
tional dress. In tho article of the skirt,
for example, Fashion, or Conventionalism
has boxed the compass 1t has been dis
tended to is fullest dimensions by hoops
and it has been allowed to flap close about
the limbs. 1t has been allowed to trail
out yard behind and it has been turn
ed up Ia Wanchisseuse, or, in plain
English, after the style of washerwoman.
And the woman who follows either fashion,
in its day, to the farthest extreme, is the
most stylishly dressed Probably half of
our "Grecian Bending young women
throughout the country have never traced
their present pet within of dress to its hum
BILE source. The washerwomar economi-
cally turns up her dress in front to save
it from the plash of the suds; and pulls it
up through her waistband or apron-strng
in bunch behind, to save it from the
wet at her heels; thus exposing her pet
ticoat all around; and STOPPING over the
tub to get at her work, there stands the
prototype Of the Fifth Avenue bellies So,
then, also, does it o'erleap even the form
liable barriers of social considerations.
No matter that our Fifth Avenue young
women and feeble limitations in Washing.
ton have never troubled their little brains
to find out what "barchisseuse" means.
Their Ignorance is just as conclusive
on the point. 1t shows conclusively that
they were Indifferent about the mean
ing, other than it was the name of the lat
est fashion, But they did not originate
the fashion, nor confirm it. All that was
done fer them in France, where they are
supposed to know what "washerwoman"
means in their own vernacular; and there
in nation divided into classes under an
imperial and aristocratic dominance, they
fashion, avowedly-to trans
late tin the style of a washerwoman."
Again, if it may be taken for granted
that heathiness in dress is not an insuper-
able objection to fashion, the task dress
reformers have before them, in order to
the general acceptance of their iDnova-
tons, is to please the .tDncy as distinct
from taste, and other supposed consiera-
ton; or else to wait for an improvement
of the charcter Of American women.
But | cannot continue the subject far
Their now.
NEWSPAPER DIFFICULTY.
The difficulty between the N. Y. Sun
and others, on the one hand, and j. r.
Young, the managing editor of the N. Y.
Tribune,-whom the parties of the first
part accuse of smuggling associated news
to another newspaper not entitled to it,
and taking improper advantage of his
trust and position as such managing edi-