Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1873-07-10
NUMBER l3.
FASHIONS.
What They Mean. and Where They
Come From.

The striking features in the prevail
ing fashions are!
Compression of the heart, lungs and
liver.
Compression of the feet and tipping
of the heels.
Dyed, burned aud crimped hair.
Freckie erasers, balms. rogues. eye-
brow dark, lip-carminator and nail
pink.
Ear-rings.
Belladonna, to brighten the eyes, and
arsenic, slate-pencils and pie to whiten
the face.
A hump on the back.
Fans like daggers, umbrellas like
shilellahs, and knapsacks laboriousiy
buckled arcrshd the wasted place called
the waist.
Hair clipped on the forehead.
Floating hair.
The less brains inside the head, the
more hair bought for the outside Of it.
ALI the ornaments possible to be got
ten upon the head, hands and neck.
Can these striking characteristics be
found i'll associations retrogressive,
brutal or aboriginal? If they eau, a
suspicion is justified as to whether the
theory of evolution in female fashion
be correct.
Feeie bellies do not know the seasons
by entertainments more exciting than
hurricanes, more aesthetic than corn
fed missionary. But they dye their
hair blonde, and the calves of their legs
are three times as thick as English
| mems. They vary the hue Of their
hair 10 bright red sometimes. and in
fuse the picturesque into the couture
be regretted that these stylish women
are treacherOus, cruel, and climb tree
on all fours. Parricide is their favor
ite pastime when not engaged in per-
sonal adornment; they bite each other.
and missionaries make slow progress
among them until after death. Polyg-
amy prevails, because s.the cares of a
household are too much for ono wo-
man. They have reduced the cooking
of human flesh to fine art by ingene-
Gus culinary processes. They get store
hair very cheap. Most of them have
IL for sale all the time.
The Ge0rgians, just south of the de-
clivity of the Caucasus, distinguished
chiefly for their marketable qualities.
cut their hair across the forehead and
frizz it. The lower class of women i'm
Peru have similar custom. The GeOr-
gian bellies die the palms of their hands
red, and the heroic swains are subject
to the same process, and produce the
like color upon their hair, beard and
nails. The women pencil their eye
brows, and both men and women cal
ciminc their faces red and white. The
Georgian belle is quite as fictitious as
the American, despite the fame of the
former for beauty and there is no rea-
son to surmise that the object of the ar
tiiieial decoration is different in the
two cases.
The Birmese women curl their hair
by very trying methods. Their
chief beauty is the tiatness of their
foreheads, and if Nature unwittingly
makes Birmese woman's forehead up
right, the defect is corrected by press
| ing the frontal bones in lcaden plates.
For fashionable Yankee girl to ell
evate the steel cOrselet that congresses
her vital organs, and use it for com
pressing and fattening her forehead,
would be an improvement. The lungs
| and heart would certainly be relieved,
and her brain would not suffer grievous
injury.
The waterfall and chignou are bor-
| ro we'd from the lower order Of women
in Japan, who have always had a weak
ness for them. In the widest portions
OF Africa, as the drawings made by
travellers invariably show, chignons are
worn, and, the more dangerously wild
the women, the greater the chignon.---
In Japan, also, il has been observed,
the less woman has inside her head,
the more she manages to arrange out
side of 1t.
The tight lacing appears to have
been borrowed from the Circassians.
Their waists are bound lin leathern
belts from the hour Of their birth until
they are married. The Circass;an
beauty, however, proves retrogression
| in ornamental artifice, for no real belle
of the tribe ever uses cosmetics. Their
chief moral characteristic, co-equal
with their beauty, il adrOit knavery.--
They are Spartans in theft. Each steals
all she can from her neighbor. The
crops are guarded by armed men.
The floating hair is the fashion of
Bohemia; which may account for the
favor the style finds among literary
women. The women of Bohemia are
simple in their lives, and live to an ad-
vanced age.
The hump on the back is not proof
of evolution; but is recurrence as
Agassiz would say--to the type of the
camel.
There seems to be absolutely no pro-
gression in cosmetics. The Kamschat-
kan hag performs her matutinal toilet
by smearing her face with red and
white as soon as she emergcs from her
howell. 1t was undoubtedly from a
contemplation of her in u foreign
fashion plate the bard arose TO remark
that beauty unadorne,i is adorned the
most. tits tue Greek girl, unfit for hon-
orable use in life, who traces faint blue
lines under her eyelids. to indicate
| physical fragility, as if 1t were not APP
parent enough. The Arab women
darken their eyebrows and eyelasbes,
but tint them blue for full diess and
Sundays. They swear more success
fully than our army in Flanders. The
Bedouins dismount long enough to
paint their arms.
The earring barbarism is ancient,
and a survival of the unfttcst; there
fore type preserved. But the haut
ton Of the widest Arab tribes show a
slight variation from the type, and a
marked Improvement upon it. They
slip little piece of glass through the
cartilage of the nose, and utilize the
incisivc but graceful little fancy by
appending thereto a heavy metal ring,
which has to be delicately drawn aside
when food is offered to the Psophagus,
The Patagonians sent us the style of
putting black patches on the face
The Persians wear all the bracelets
they can steal, and carry gold scent
boxes around their necks. 1t is a san
itary measure with them. The Abys-
sinians wear little images about their
necks. The Esquimaux, people not
given to manufacturing Industries
nevertheless get and keep upon their
persons everything they can. The
Calmuck wears shells in her ears. To-
bacco Is her narcotic, and she is a
good match for an ostrich in race,
Greek nymphs have looking glasses in
their fan-handles, and tie the fans TO
their persons. The belle of Makova
/ ,,,a. 30 hoe .Nl.oksunt t, Ia rs II, .,,rl ,o,n.s