Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-06-07
naneina ana " Fun Dress. -

art, as meet for a woman as the flowers
tint or the birds plumage. | sigh at the
sight of my pretty Terpsichore because
the first bloom of her exquisite youth is
being inhaled and lost forever in fever
ish, false atmosphere of being. Some.
thing of delicate sensibility, something
of unconscious innocence, something Of
freshness of feeling, of purity of soul, is
wasted with the fresh young bloom of
her cheek in the midnight revel length
ened into morning. wasted in the heat
ed dance, in the indigestible feast, in the
wild unhealthy excitement through
which she whirls night after night. Terp
sichore, in her tattered tarletan dress,
after having danced all night, it is sad
sight to see to any one who can see her
as she is. REPOSITORIES mother would be
a sadder sight still, if she were not a
vexatious one. She brought back from
Europe the notion, which so many of
our countrywomen think it so fine to
bring, that full dress" is necessarily
next to no dress. She tells you, in
supreme tone that admits no denial, that
you would not be admitted to the draw
ing room of court in Europe unless in
full dress-viz, semi-nak edness. She
would be nothing if not European in
style. Thus, night after night, this
mother of grown-up daughters and sons
appears in crowded assemblies in attire
that would beft in outline a child of
eight years of age.
Thus in Republican Washington, in
glazing drawing-rooms, we are treated
to study of female anatomy which is
appalling. Don't jump to the conclusion
that want every lady to go to party
in a stiff dress, drawn up to her ears -
nor that | am so prudish as to think no
dress can be modestly as well as immod-
estly low. No. matter how it be cut, the
way in which dress is worn is more i'm
pressive than the dress itself. | have
seen a young girls shoulders rise from
her muslin frock as unconsciously and
as innocently as the lilies in the garden
and have come upon wife and moth
er in public assembly so dressed for
promiscuous gaze that l have involun-
tarily shut my eyes with shame.
| never saw Lydia Thompson, but from
what | have heard of her, have come to
the conclusion thather attire is Just as mod
est as that ofmany ladies whom l meet at
fashionable parties. They cast their
eyes up in horror at the name of poor
Lydia Thompson. They go to see Lyd-
la Thompson No, indeed How could
their eyes endure the sight of that dread
full woman No less they themselves Of
fer gratis to promiscuous company ev-
cry evening sight morally quite as
dreadful. The men who pay their mon
ey to Lydia Thompson and her troupe,
know that their dress and burlesque,
however unquestionable, make at once
their business and their livelihood. They
cannot make the same excuse for their
wives, their sisters and their sweathearts,
! if they see them scarcely less modestly
attired in some fashionable bail room.
Remember this-if you ever find your
self in such place, the best men in that
room at heart are not delighted with
such displays. Being men, they look at
whatever IS presented to their gaze -
more many will compliment and Aatter
the very women whose vanity at heart
they pity or dispioe; but it will always
be with mental reservation, "my wife
should never dress like that"
don't want to see my sister dane
ing round dances for hours in the arms
of man whom even | cannot think of
without horror, and if dances with
him again I'll not go to another Ger
man" said young man to his mother
this very winter This is perpetually
the fact; and it is the danger and the
shame of the round dances. Young
girls guarded from babyhood from all
contact with vice, from all knowledge of
men as they exist in their own world of
clubs and dissipation, suddenly come out
to whirl night after night, and week af
ter week, in the arms of men whose
lightest touch is PROCLAMATION. 1t would
be long before it would dawn upon the
girl to dream of the evil in that mans
heart-far longer to learn the evil of his
life; yet no less to her, innocent and
young in the very association and con-
tact there is unconscious pollution.
There is sacredness in the very thought
of the body which God created to be the
human home of an immortal soul. Its
very beauty should be the ideal of its no.
illness. Everywhere in Scripture its sa
credness is recognized and enforced
Therein we are told that the bodies are
the temples of God. We are command
ed to make them meet temples for the
indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Our very
dress, in its harmony and purity, should