Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1871-08-16


and forty-seven curis Picture him timing
the pulse of dying man with one hand
and tightening his hairpins with the other
1t is a threadbare experiment Of outra-
ged taste to fire broadsides Of ridicule at
women's dress but it is neither fair play
nor fair logic to do % only that and moth
ing more" Women are what men have
made them. You had the first chance
sir Our hour is not yet come" II j,
quite as much your fault as ours that you
write ethics while we hem frils; and that
you support the family while we punch
stiletto holes in a piece Of cambric, OF
prick yards Of muslin into embroidered
inrertin, to enrich our necks and arms
withal.
From the time that girl-baby is put
into himsy muslin underskirt, with three
frils, and boy baby into a solid piece OF
blue flannel, with a sailor collar and brass
buttons, to the day when Mary leaves
school and begins (alas poor Mary , to
do her own sewing, the girls mental force
is imperceptibly, insidiously, poisonously
draining away into the covering Of her
poor, little, innocent, beautiful body. By
that time. it is time for her to be married,
and then the last state of that woman shall
be worse than the first.
Men dress to please themselves. Wom-
en- dress to please the men. 4 mans
attire has regard to his comfort, his con-
venience, his means, his business, his
whereabouts, his health, his happiness 4
womans has regard to the whims, the
fancies, the weakness, the admirations, and
the passions of men.
Run your eye over any female seminary
that you may chance upon, and how often
would you find a girl to whom you would
say that it has ever occurred to inquire
whyi Is that she should put on ten rows
Of velvet in a Glecian pattern on the bot
tom Of dress, while her brother has his
coat bound once with silk braid and
then calls it a gimp, and never knows the
difference to his dying day? Why she
wears four feathers, several yards OF rib
bon piece Of lace, cambric flowers, and a
veil upon her straw hat and he only lutte
string band pinned straight over the
crown Why her hat tips over her nose,
and his stays on bis he'd? Why she is
burdened with a pink parasol, and he goes
hand free and burned and happy? Why
he may freckle from forehead TO chin
if he likes and why She lock herself into
her room and cries when she discovers the
dent upon the bridge OF her nose ?
Why he should wear comfortable loose
coats, and she uneasy tight basques Why
he Is in broadcoth, She IN transparent
muslin? Why her pretty neck Is bare. his
decently covered Why She pays four dol
lars for a lace collar, be twenty-five for
linen? Why She Is pinched into corsets,
and he l. not? Why his shirts are made
into plain bands, and every article of her
underdress is trimmed Why her very
handkerchiefs are reduced to a sense.ess,
useless mass Of fine embroidery and lace
work, to which he would refuse the dignity
Of mosquito netting2
Why, in short, all the use OF dress is
his, the fuss hers The sense his. the nom
seuse hers The beauty hesitate Man
is not graceful being but in this culti-
waited year of our Lord, one thousand eight
hundred and seventy-oae. his very stove
pipe hat and sack coat yield the field to the
unapproached and unapproachab.ed detorm-
ity Of womans attire.
1t takes more and worse than brains to
dress as women are expected to dress. 1t
takes morals.
That few pure minded women know or
think, in donning the latest modes, that
they have sprung from the corrupt ingcuu-
ity Of Partisan harlot-, only makes tine
matter worse Good women ought to
think 1t IS their duty to see, not to il
more, to exile, not to overlook, an immod-
est style The mischief and misery will
never be remedied till they DO. Bad
women think meanwhile, and society re-
spends to the thinker, irrespective Of moral
quality.
These are sharp, plain words in which
to put very sad, subtle truth; but they
are the sad and subtle truths which require
sharp, plain words This would be no
place to say them if they were said IN their
place.
If every woman VINO has the training Of
young girls in her hands would teach
them, as fast and as far, as slowly and As
finely as carefully and as tersely as she
theory Of feminine dress is degradation
to good woman and an opportunity to
bad one, she would do more toward saving
the world than any pulpit but the New
Testament, and than any preacher but St.
j ohm.
When the world learns that there is
worse than no reason Why woman should
sacrifice any more tine, money, strength,
intellect, or modesty to their dress than
men, We shall have ten women citizens,
Scholars inventors, ,sculptors, artists, poets,
and rulers where it would be impossible, in
the nature Of things to find more than one
now.