The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1875-08-05
For our Girls.
BY j. 81. Acton.-No. 2.

Our boys may De equally guilty, but they
have not the latitude in which to display
it. and however God may look upon
them, people in this world for the most
part will pity them and allow them to
pass on. A boys morals cannot be
shown in his pantaloons like girls in
her dress By general consent men are
supposed to be only passably respectable
at best. The day for inquiry into the
morals of boys seems to have passed; it |
is no longer necessary. They are bad |
and everybody knows it. It is general,
and we no longer make distinctions. |
But girls dress badly not because they |
are bad, but because they are foolish. |
Style is style though it be handed down
to us from fingers that we would not al
low to touch ribbon we wear, and style
has become tyrant whose demand is no
longer bearable. As an example, what
sense is there in twenty yards of goods to
tie your limbs together with, when three
or four at most would do better and at
least have the redeemable quality of
costing less? No human being unless he
be horse trainer can give even a faint
guess why such fashion was ever intro
duced. 1t is neither cheap convenient,
healthy, nor pretty; but horseman
would tell US he uses similar device
which he calls "hobbles" to teach his an
imal to pace, and unless this is the de-
sign, and an attempt is now making to
introduce among US race of pacing girls
we are utterly at a loss to account for
this style.
But you ask what is to be done, must
we be odd from everybody else2 We an
swer, certainly. God made you odd from
all others and you must be SO whether
you will it or not You need not be con-
spicuously odd. Every style which ig-
nores modest decency should be ignored.
These carry their own playcard and peo-
pie need not mistake the inventors. If
the highest style of the present dress
skirt allows but ten inches walking
room, you can allow ten inches more
without being conspicuously out of style,
and it will greatly relieve your step to
say nothing of an exposed form which
human clothing was originally adopted
ito cover. A girl with no judgment of
her own as to what is appropriate to wear
lcannot be stylish if she tries, and is ut
sterly without protection. True virtue is
never immodest, but the dress of many a
virtuous girl has betrayed her into hands
that had no respect for her moral worth,
and she has finally awakened to the fact
that a fitting epitaph over the grave of
] her ruined character would be, lost for
q want of little common sense.
Y The charge which many men make of
a general tendency on the part of our
girls to vicious habits is base slander.
There never were purer girls among men
than the great majority of those of our
country to-day. Our colleges and schools
Il literally swarm with girls whose minds
are hardly given to an impure or immod
are almost the sole guardians of the vir
tue of the world.
And whether men will acknowledge il
or not, the women know this to be true
|, but there is an excuse for this slanderous
, charge of impurity when virtue deliber
ately wears the garb of the vicious, GU
, from patterns they have designed, ant
, made from goods of their choosing. Hu
man judgment will not change to sui
the whims of vitiated taste, though il
, may plead style and force itself upon tn,
purest and best.
A girls dress is one of her introduc
, tions to society. Itshould not INTRODUCES
another, but herself. If 1t does this, i
must have some personal quality. If i
, is precisely like her friends it is pla
giarism and a cheat. She may be eve
, so good, but her dress is worthless anc
. does her injustice. A girl whose origi
nality does not find some expression il
, dress, will be judged of in society by
! kind of average with the great multi
tude. 1t is quite as bad taste to depend
for all the minutie of your wardrob'
upon the patterns of your neighbor, as i
would be should you manufacture some
, unheard of cut for yourself; and mucl
worse taste where these patterns are bor
rowed and never returned. Depending
upon Ladies' Books and Bazaars for every
device, makes lazy fingers and slovenly
persons, and is fruitful source of dis
content, while you will value that which
your own. genius has produced if for nc
other reason, simply because you have
made it,
Ribbons, and founces, and ruff1es, and
tucks, on cheap goods belong with brass
jewelry and are the farthest remove from
good taste. They can never make uI
for the lack in the quality of the goods
People will never be deceived by frill
such goods are not worth the labor thus
bestowed, while fine quality does not
need these additions.
Girls, have some womanly indepen
dence. 1t is not independence to parade
the streets half dressed, this is the mean
est kind of slavery to slovenness. Never
suppose that people will call you indie
pendent because you may stop on the
sidewalk to pull down tightly drawn
dress creeping over your shoe-tops, for if
you were truly independent you would
wear your dress in such way that it
would stay in its place without this help.
To be independent is to be so far relieved
from the tyranny of custom, that you
can step outside of its demands to do
such things as your consciences tell you
are right to be done, unrestrained and
without blush, and such independence