Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1875-08-13
The Tyranny over women.

millions of human beings on this
globe of ours, and of these, probab-
ly not far from one tenth permit the
most terrible tyranny to be exercis-
ed over its women. The female por-
tion of the other nine-tenths have
their peculiar griefs and hardships
and endurances, but their tortures
are light as compared with the suf-
ferings of the one tenth.
The one-tenth are the civilized,
refined, polite people of the earth ;
the nine-tenths are the semi-civilized
and barbaric. The tyranny is the
tyranny of fashion, the despotism
of public sentiment. The leading
tyrant is some person whom nobody
knows; for whose private and per-
sonal opinion no mother in the land
would care two straws, and whom
perhaps she would no more invite
to her home than she would a pesti-
lence. Yet the tyranny is submit
ted to by all, and nobody who is any
body, dares demonstrate or rebel.
The tyranny is not only quietly sub
mitted to, bnt there is always an
actual strife to determine who
among the enslaved shall be the first
to wear the .fetters, newly forged
from season to season. 1t is bad
enough when this tyranny merely
extends to matters of taste; it is fear
full when it affects morals and health.
That it has tended to impair the
former in times past will be asserted
by those who do not favor decol-
lette dresses; the health suffers to
greater or less extent through this
tyranny is undeniable. We have
but to point to the multitudes of
waists injuriously compressed by
corsets; to the permanent suffering
brought about by piles of false hair
and the application of poisonous
dyes and cosmetics; to the local dis
comfort and internal arrangement
induced by distorting. shoes and
high-Eeels, in order to satisfy the
most careless observer that the des-
potism of which we speak has done
It's full share in the way of dethorn-
ing the health of its victims. The
supremacy of dress has gradually
become toll and torment. To be
well-dressed for a woman nova
days, is to sell herself, soul as well
as body, to the omnipotenee of
clothes. For garments have ceased
to be mere covering. They are to
the wearer as the petals are to "a
flower, as the rind is to a fruit, as
the foliage is to tree, as the clouds |
are to sunset. A woman's charms
are to day one third her own, and |
the other two thirds are owing to |
her dressmaker, milliner, and hair
dresser. Sfsg
Who shall deliver the fair sex
from this tyranny? Who shall |
bring back the simple styles of other
days, the plain skirts, the palmer |
hair, the general simplicity Of at
tire that once was prevalent?
Fashions is at best but a capri
cious goddess. Worse still, she is
an inexorable one. One season she
piles a lady's tresses mountain high |
above her forehead. The next, she
sends them dangle on pigtaii down
the wearer's back. In the spring |
she loops a lady's skirt above her
boot-top. In the autumn she bids
her victim trail yards of silk behind
her.
Ordinarily fashion appears to set
all chronology at defiance in the |
matter of woman's costume. She |
demands the "pompadour'' in hair,
the 'Elizabethan in ruffles, the Lou
is XIV. in high-heels, and the monde
script in tight skirts. She is called
a goddess; she is certainly as incon-
sistent. Time was when she de-
that every woman should
court death by walking the streets |
IN thinned-souled slippers. Now
ii ey defy the weather in stout and |
comfortable boots. But there is no
that the thin supper may |
not come into vogue again. And if |
{ does hundreds of fashionable Ia
lies will, on account of it, cough |
into untimely graves. i
From the Paihssviile Telegraph.
VINO Own THE PEoPLR?- 1t is all |
right and proper that the good Lord
should own the cattle on q thousand |
hills, but we have some doubts as to |
whether some half dozen political |
wire pullers should, or do, own the |
voters of this Judicial District. Whe- |
Lher they do or not, it is reported |
that certain parties in Ashtabula and |
Lake have proposed to trade the Re-
publican voters of their respective
Geauga to have one Judge,
Ashtabula the other, and the Senator |
in like manner. Perhaps! This little |
side arrangement reminds one of q
certain individual who a long time |
ago offered to dispose of the whole |
world, when he didn't own foot of
=. IL