The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1873-02-19

Daetouo WVhf"hs, "ho soy . Siio VIII HaNC iick
children sdecently dressed; that means
fashionably dressed. She can't afford to hire
her sewing done so, in addition to all her
housework, she makes their dresses and if
you have seen Oracle, the eldest one, you can
judge what that implies"
"She's very stylish-looking girl said.
"Yes, and her mother is very proud of her,
as is natural. She is just seventeen, and what
wonderful costumes she does bloom out in |
They are all afloat with puffs and ruffles,
quilts and frills, till there's scarce an inch of
untrimmed space about her; and Clara and
Nellie go by to school every morning, each
with another set of furbelowed upper skirts
and under skirts, basques and sacks; while
Baby Belle-bless her dear little heart lis all
anoat, too, with tiny rufiles on her tiny skirt.
"Isn't she a darling9" | cried
Yes, lovely, with her blue eyes, and apple
blossom cheeks but wouldn't she be just as
pretty in plain white dress with bit of edg-
ing round the neck and sleeves, if it were the
fashion? And the pretty Gracie-is the charm
in her, her lovely complexion and fine express
sion, or in her furbelows and fiinges?"
In her, of course" l said. "Children
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's absolutely necessary to follow the
last fashion plate so she works like slave
from morning till night, and her sewing ma
chine is often going until after midnight. No
wonder she looks broken down, and has neu-
ralgia and a diseased spine. She has done
the work of two women, and it is the hardest
kind of work, too. Every inch of all 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 ripping. / wonder
the woman is alive. don't believe there is
a sewing-woman in this 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 call
ers, practicing and pic-nicing, croqueting and
coquetting, it would be cruel to expect her to
do more than to make the plainest portion of
her under-clothes'
"But it's absurd, " said, "for mechanics
wife to go into such extravagancies.
81 don't know as a mechanics wife can be
expected to be more sensible than other wo-
men" said Hester, dryly. "a reform must
begin somewhere else, fancy"
81 suppose so, / said, with sigh "but
the whole subject is full of difficulties"
"All of which might be overcome if women
had spark of Independence Here is a tangi-
BILE evil for them to grapple with, now they
have walked up to sense of their strength
and capabilities.
Yes they may rs well begin a reform
here as of the nation at the ballot-box,n
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 APP
piled to dress as to other things; that there
is an essential, intrinsic beauty or uglness in
our garments, entirely irrespective of fashion
in other words, that it is one thing to be well
dressed, and another to be fashonably dressed"
eyes, said "but what is it to be well
dressed?"
|
cit isn't to wear huge protuberance ON your
head or back, which, if you had been born
with it, would have been considered shock
ing deformity. 1t isn't to conceal all the lines
of the human figure, or to make it one noun
tain Of trimming, when trimming should al
ways be subseryicnt, adding grace, and defin-
ing outlines. And then, too, it must be some
~, IA L..
thing fashionable dressing is. Art wouldn't
make a balloon of MS this month, and
scantily-draped statue the next she wouldn't
tilt us up on heels that agonize our toes and
pitch us down stairs to-day, and tomorrow
set us on the ground like so many flat-footcd
Indians"
"That would be comfort" I said. "If,
when dress was made, it would stay made
and look well till it was worn out, it would
lessen half our labors."
"Well, IIepsy, believe the good time is
coming-the time when we shall have higher
civilizations and break the chains fashion fet-
tiers us with now. Then we shall distinguish
between true beauty and deformity and our
miliners and dress-makers will be artistes and
not modistes and, instead Of looping and
stretching us all ON one iron bed, they will
study adaptation to age, complexion, and char
acter, till we come out of their hands individu-
ais as well as comfortable and attractive
When we 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 different we are in size and
figure?"
Every strange and absurd,' said and
Hester went away.
Exactly at o'clock OH Thursday the Great
Expanded arrived. She was great deal
pulled out, truly, and made all manner of fun
of herself. When Hester Graywood came in,
wearing her untrimmed gray silk, she made
low obeisance.
81 do thee homage, thou most heroic of
womankind !" she cried. 81 cast myself in
the dust at thy feet l envy, I adore thee,
thou woman who darest I"
Finally, we got little quoted, though,