The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-12-12
About Dress RefOrm-Perhaps.


lectures. Not to lecture at that season on
the subject IS not to be up with the times and
is to be derelict to duty. Just now the ''best"
Journals are exercising themselves on dress
reform, confining their advice to women who,
we are informed, always insist-in adorning
themselves with apparel no. in harmony
with the demands Of comfort, the dictates of
utility, the laws of health or the standard set
up by the writers, for female beauty. Now TO
ensure the possible pefusal of this Article by
the intelligent patron, we here state it is not
our purpose to follow the example of the
best Journals. In other words this is not
lecture-not unless our natural tendency to
preachment gets away with our better judg-
ment In fact, we cannot see tnat women
have availed themselves of any of the good
advice they have had on this subject. Some
thousands Of years since, the Hebrew proph-
cts set upon the women of their times for
wearing adornments and giving themselves
up to frvolties of dress which did not COM
mend themselves to their severe ideals of
womanly propriety. We have not read all
IuC UOOho, pdnpulCto duu pdpCio PuOhohSu
since that time, but the few of each which have
fallen under our notice, lead us 10 conclude
that since the time of the Hebrew lecturers,
there has been no lapse in the succession
that all times have been blessed with those
good people who lectured beautiful women
concerning the unsuitable character or prot
ligacy of their dress. Sometimes they have
moralized upon the sinfulness of female ap-
parel and at others they have ridicueG its
! follies, but all the while the dear creatures
have pursued the even tenor of their way
fro: the time that Eve made the fig leaf
the seasonable and proper thing to the latest
Paris announcement, apparently utterly OBJ
livIous to the existence of the long line of lee
turer:. Consequently when We Lecture. it
will be on the senatorial succession, the cur
rency question, the transit of Venus, the
necessity of capturing the North Pole with
capital ''n'' and a capital "p'') or any other
subject of which we do or do not know any
thing. When we desire to denounce any
thing, we have the resdrrected Democratic
party now uncomfortaby aggressive, as
standing subject and worthy of all the bad
things which can be uttered by person
having limited vocabulary of epithet. When
we desire to advocate anything we shall not
fall upon so unfamiliar subject as any
particular style of feminine dress, so
long as we have the tariff, the civil SER
vice, the Maine Historical Society, cheese
culture in Maine, the Galt's wharf purchase,
the office-hol1ers' ring aud Prof. Pierce's
Truth Telling Association as topics from
which to make selection. As depression,
we may state-althongh it is hardly necessa-
ry-that we are competent authorities Oh
this last subject. In short, we are quite in
the George Washington line. The average
reptile contemporary" too, has great rever-
ence for the truth-so great that he seldom
uses it and never when he assails US.
To return to the subject or rather to speak
of dress-reform, it may be remarked that the
sinfulness of woman's dress and adornments
is not now subject of remonstrance. The
purpose of the present writer's on that subject
appears to be to alarm women with the fact
that existing fashions are inimical to
health. They denounce the greater part of
the present modes and set up Others of their
own. Some of the costumes described will
have to be in use some time before one will
see their beauty. Many have assailed the
corset as suicidal devicee. On the
other-hand DIR. Clarke defends it, and Mrs.
Swisshelm, in lieu thereof, suggests "carry-
alr'-not the vehicle of that name, but some
sort of garment, which, as its name indi-
Gates, is an upholder of all and singular the
inner or under garments. When this lady
says that "room to breathe is the first neces-
sity, room to walk is of little less Importance
and women must stop making mop-sticks of
their bodies before they can have health,"
the masculine mind can comprehend the
sentiment; but when she enters upon the de-
tails and enumerates the supports and straps
and double straps and such, the average
lord of creation becomes bewildered and tells
his wife or sister that Mrs. S. will send any
inquiring person the patterns for the entire
'rig" for the sum of two dollars in currency.
Mrs. Woolson, well known to our Portland
people, has just issued a book on dress-re-
form. We have not read it, but it is certain
to be worth perusal, and if any husband
and father thinks that his wife and daughters
will be benefited by reading, let him pur-
chase the book and take it home. 1t must be
wiser, better and not so dry as the lecture OF
the average masculine editor on that subject.