Connecticut western news., 1872-11-29
" In her, of course," said. "Children and young girls are never so pleasing as when simply dressed"

and young girls are never so pleasing as when simply dressed''
 " Certainly and our taste is corrupted when we do not see this. But there's poor Mrs. T. thinks it absolutely necessary to fol- low the last fashion-plate so she works like slave from morning till night and her sewing g-machine is often going till after mid night. No wonder she looks broken down, and has neuralgia and diseased spine. She has done the work of two women, and it is the hardest kind of work, too. Every inch of those interminable yards of hemming and binding, gathering and fastening, passes through her fingers, to say nothing of the contriving and fitting, and basting and rip ping. wonder the woman is alive. don t believe there is a woman in the city harder worked"
 But why don't the daughters help her" "Those in school haven't any time. Oracle does all she can but with her calls and callers, practising and pic-nicing, croquetting and CO., quetting, it would be cruel to expect her to do more than make the plainest portion of her under-clothes. /"
 But it's absurd" Isaid, ''for mechanic S wife to go into such extravaganza. don't know as mechanics wife can be expected to be more sensible than any other woman,' said Hester dryly. "A re- form must begin somewhere else, I fancy''
  the whole subject is full of dificulties.' | "All of which might be overcome if women had spark of independence. Here is tan gible evil for them to grapple with, now that they have walked up to sense of their strength and capabilities.
 "Yes; they may as we'll begin a reform here, as of the nation at the ballot-box," said, laughing. But how to do it is the question. Is there any standard by which dress can be judged and regulated"
 "Not now,'' said Hester; " but believe the principles of art, true art, might be ap- piled to dress as to other things that there is an essential, intrinsic beauty or ugliness in our garments, entirely irrespective of fashion; in other words, that it is one thing to be well dressed, and another to be fashionably dressed.''
 "Yes," I said; "but what is it to be we'll dressed ?''
 II can tell you what it isn' t." said Hester. "It isn't to wear huge protuberance on your head or your back, which, if you had been born with it, would have been consid- cred shocking deformity. It isn't to con- ceal all the lines of the human figure, or to make it one mountain of trimming, when trimming should always be subservient, add ing grace, and defining outlines. And then, too, it must be something permanent. It can't be the changing thing fashionable dressing is Art wou1dn't make balloon of us this month, and scantily-draped statue l the next she wouldn't tilt us up on heels that agonize our toes, and pitch us down stairs to-day, and tomorrow see us on the ground l like so many bare-footed Indians" "That would be comfort,' I said. eff. when dress was made, it would stay made, and look well till it was worn out, it would lessen half our labors.''
 "Well, Hepsy, believe the good time is coming-the time when we shall have a higher civilization, and break the chains fashion letters us with now. Then we shall distinguish between true beauty and dsformi- | ty and our milliners and dressmakers will be artistes, and not modistes and, instead of looping and stretching us all on one iron bed, they will study adaptation to age, complex ion, and character, till we come out of their hands individual, as we'll as comfortable and attractive. When eve think of it, isn't it strange how it ever came about that we let ourselves all be worried into exactly the same shaped garments, no matter how diff ferent we are in size and fgure?'
 "Very strange and absurd" I said and Hester went away.
 Exactly at one o'clock on Thursday the Great Expanded arrived. She was good deal puffed out truly, and made all manner of fun of herself. When Hester GraywOod came in, wearing her untrimmed gray silk, she made low obeisance.
 II do thee homage, thou most heroic ot womankind !' she cried. C cast myself in the dust at thy feet, I envy, adore thee. thou woman who darest !''
 Finally we got little quieted though naturally enough, our thoughts still ran on dress.
 ''I am disgusted with myself" said Lou 1T really am. I don't want to be fashion. able; 1 couldn't afford it if did but my tastes are all plain and simple. I consider such an overloaded, puffed-out concern as this not only ridiculous but vulgar yet here I am wearing it and I lose my self-respect in consequence. But how could help my, selfl How in the world did you manage Hester, to get sensible dress made ?'
 "Just by my horribly obstinate temper, " said Hester, laughing '' First had a pitched ous then ran the gantlet of her twenty sewing girls, who opened all their forty eyes in holy terror at the trying on.'
 "I should as soon think of fighting Her cules," said Lou. "There's no place where l am so thoroughly cowed as in dressmakers rooms, don't dare to peep or mutter.''
 "Yes ;-amiable people like you rather submit than make fuss.'
 "But they ought to make fuss,'' saic Lou it's sheer cowardice in my case, not suitability. Every lady's dress should be al expression of her own individual taste anc character-but look at us we are all turned out just alike, like so many ninepins"
 ''Well, what is to be done about it ?'' asked.
 "Why not form an ant-fashion society, said Hester, "and get all sensible women t, pledge themselves to dress according to thei own ideas of propriety, without regard t. fashion? Union is strength, and organized effort the order of the day"
 "Capital !'' cried Lou" we'll draft ant sign declaration of independence and you Hester, shall put down your name with great dash, John Hancock-like.' "Pll make out the list of grievances, 5 said l.
 Easy enough to do that' said Lou , wornout mothers, bankrupted fathers, neg leeted babies, disgusted husbands''-- l Hold there !'' I cried Husbands ar ) as fond of dress as wives, 50 far as my experi { ence goes"
 Why do they keep up such an ever1astin } fault-fnding with our extravaganza, then i? Well, my dear, men are not alway 7 severely consistent-they are eloquent O. ? that theme, I know but put plainly -dresse girl on one side of a man, and futterin , piece of millinery on the other, and ten 7 one he will be enchanted with the latte John Seymour is not the only victim of "pin7 :, and white tyranny"
 "Then men are in measure responsibl l for the evil" said Hester.
 t "So tell Tom," said. "Let every maj who approves of simplicity and economy de ) vote himself to the plainest-dressed girl il the room, turning @ cold shoulder on thos who wear diamonds and such like sinfu things, and he will do more to effect refo1 nation than by years of preaching. Girl f like to please nice young men, and no harn done either, just as young men like to pleas l nice young girls. The influence is mutua and wholesome. Let young men frown ol l extravagantly- young women, m young women scorn on dissipated, fast youn men. and a vital change in manners an