Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1875-05-10
Woman,s Dress.


never see a woman with her clothes
tied back tight about her human form d.
vine that | don't feel like shouting, Hale
lelujah the good times coming 1t is
the first milestone towards the the eman-
cipston of my sex. They are marching
on. 1t is the visible evolution of the Eve
woman out OF rudimentary conglomer.
alton of odds and ends 1t is classic, and
artistic souls that rejoice thereat; and,
also, it is covering the intention of the
original apron, and not dress, modern
innovation, each piece of which was ad.
ded for the additional sin until the pieces
threatened suffocatiOn. The climax of
the fault was reached when we counted
dress by the eighteen pieces, with little
ornaments thrown in, and then the scales
fell of, one by one, until we stand-we
cant sit down very well-in our present
garment. Necessity, being voted fe-
male, is the mother of invention" al.
though men always manage to get out
the patent right on all she invents, even
to garters and children, and, being of the
inventing sex, her prolific brain had to be
busy at something. For eighteen hun
dred years her sphere has been dress,
and, in this universe of one idea, she has
shown herself prodigy in invention.
She has manipulated this one work until
it has taken shapes innumerable, and
men wonder while they scoif thereat.
Eve began the dry goods business in the
Garden of Eden, and having, before the
fall, and some time after, the same rights
as Adam, rut upon him an amendment
to the natural constitution exactly like
her own. Undoubtedly it went against
bis stomach-aprons always do-but he
found it to his interest, there being at
that time but one woman on the earth to
receive the afront without argument.
Adam and Eve, after being driven out of
Eden, without regard to sex, color or
previous condition of servitude" began
to earn their bread by the sweat OF their
brows. That is, Adam went into the
agricultural business, and Eve naturally
fell to getting warm and worked-up over
trimming the joint apron. Thence arose |
the first quarrel, all predestinated for the |
good OF the human race. Eve wanted it |
made of fg'leaves; Adam of grape
therein showing his first sinful bias for
the vineyard. Of course, dress being
our mothers own business, she gave
Adam no peace-of anything to wear
until he gave in; but to this day, when
woman speaks Of new dress, be says,
"a fig for your absurd garment" And |
from that age to this, man pretends to an
absolute divine scorn of what be wears.
From the tine Of EYES fall, and mans
fall-sehood, then, dress has clung to wo-
man as her share of the original dress
making, and has undergone more chang
es than the sand upon the seashore,
while man, inheriting the original Adam
stubbornneSs, has clothed his body in
only just 80 much as cultivated decency
forced upon him. Evolution is the laws
OF progress. 1t is time for rejoicing
when the rudimentary surroundings be-
gin to fall off and the useful show itself.
Woman has certainly evoluted, little
out OF the original sin. At last you see,
in broad daylight, her legs, her arms, her
whole natural shape. She has long been
delusion and scare to men. No one
could swear how much was Eve and how
much apron. Yes, she has developed
under the sun of truth little, but as vet
the sin trammels her natural work, and
she finds it difficult to walk, sit down,
and to kneel is out of fashion entirely,
all owing to the mode of dress. Dress,
like history, repeats itself. Undoubtedly
we shall retrograde trihe, but progress
is our watchword, and the eye of prophe-
cy beholds, in an Eden future, woman
robed in garment which will allow the
free action Of all organs, for all are "hon.
orable." Therefore rejoice with me that
my sex once more dares to show Adam
the woman, not bundle of wrappines,
but the form divine in its beauty and
grace, and pray with me that the day be
not far distant when the legs now tied
back be emancipated, the arms trussed
like baked fowl be allowed to move to
the melody of bodily motion, and through
the recovered laws of health, new woman
constitution formed, to which she shall
cling with an Andrew johnson tenacity
forever and ever. Amen.-Le Baron.