American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-03-18
Mrs. Swisshelm on Female Van
ity.

crime which has disgraced the place
once held by Stanton, the finger of the
dial-plate points directly to Mrs. Bel
knap's wardrobe as the bottomless pit
into which sank nations honor, pub
lie confidence, and the supremacy of a
party unrivaled in history for glorious
deeds. 1t seems very little grave in
which to bury so many large corpses,
but it is one opening into that subterra-
mean lake which underlies all human
society, and its capacity is immeasura-
BILE. Through similar apertures have
dropped all the nations of the past, and
still these little mouths, like the horse
leech, cry j." Give! give!"
The world poetry and Jurisprudence
have ever taught that men should be
brave and women fair; that one should
reason, the other feel; that one should
labor, the other be held as that labor's
reward; and that, according to the ex-
ternal beauty and adornments, so is the
value of this reward.
The tower has fallen on Mrs. Bel
KNAPP, but this is no reason for believing
that sh. is sinner above all those who
in this country have not been dressing
above their means? How many have
not been tempting fathers and husbands
to dishonesty by their extravagant de-
mands for dress? The number is GER
tainly in the minority, and their oppo-
sites are confined to no locality or class.
The wives and daughters of lawyers,
doctors, merchants, mechanics, and Ia
borers have alike been straining every
nerve to appear in gorgeous costumes,
families have not been hindmost in the
race for expensive personal decora-
tions.
As rule, American women for the
last ten years have gone to balls and re-
ceptions, public halls, theaters, church
es, fairs, bazars, and every place else to
which they have gone, to show their
dresses and see what other women wore,
rather more than for any other pur-
pose, and the reason is that American
men, having proved their bravery, de-
manded their reward of beauty. Bear
ing false standards, they have been
pleased with barbaric display, have de-
manded and received the homage of
personal decorations in the
woman they admire, and have had the
pleasure of paying for them.
Poor Mrs. Belknap caught the infec-
ton of foreign finery and went clear out
of her mind, and the press, which is
on her case to-day, was,
very recently, RECALLING the public with
glowing accountsOf her triumphs, which
al turned on her surprising toilets.
Ruskin says that to be noble is to be
and by this rule about the only
way in which woman can ennoble her.
self to-day is to get Worth to make her
a dress in which she shall attract Jen-
kins's attention, and get before the pub
lie by aid of his facile pen. The pulpit
is dumb before that passion for finery
which is sweeping away our liberties
like a flood, and the press swells it by
columns and columns of Jenkins's twad-
die about the lovely Miss ID. in the blue
silk dress, and the majestic Mrs. E. in
velvet and diamonds. There are few
papers that do not give more space to
descriptions of toilets than to
any question of public morals or edu-
cation.
No man or woman of common sense
could have read the published descrip-
lions of Mrs. Belknap's dress, and cal
culated her known resources, without
knowing she came dishonesty by her
finery; but was the sweet incense of
public fiattery any the less lavishly be-
slowed on that account Did our
indignant guardians of pub
lie morals close their columns
to Jenkinsp Or did their conductors
square their lives by any rule of Repub-
lican simplicity Does not the bishop
and priest at the altar rival the prima
donna and tragedian on the stage in the
glitter of their costumesP What church,
or press, or political party, except the
Woman Suffragists, has raised any Sc
rious objection, or given any note of
warning to or against the wicked waste
of time, and health, and money, which
has characterized our modes of dress
ing for ten years past?
Now, under the astounding develop
ments which must shake the world s
faith in Republicanism, we hear on all
c;doo that vuopoap,s oxfrovorspoo in
dress has been the primal cause of our
disgrace. Mrs. Belknap's dresses, Miss
Schenck's dresses, Mrs. Babcock' s.
dresses, are all ripped up and hung out
to air; but who taught them to sacrifice
honor to love of fine clothesp Who
loaded them with fulsome fattery for
their folly and sinp Who led them into
this quagmire, and now turns to pelt
them with mud?
It's right that the women who have
tempted those dearest to them to do
wrong should bear their full share of the
punishment, and the best way to cure
the evil they represent is to make it obi.
GUS, and let them have their full share
of the odium but the great mass of the
American people are called to repent
ance by these developments; and men
more than women need to cultivate a
taste for simplicity; for women will al.
ways strive to be what is most agreea.
BILE to them, and if men had not admired
the reckless extravaganza which led
Belknap to ruin that extravaganza would
not have existed. Let the press stop its