The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-02-05
Fashion Plates.

1t is only within the last 20 years, says
the New York Times, that the true uses
of fashion plates have become familiar
to the American people. At the present
day it is estimated that every American
woman consumes an average quantity of
five fashion plates and II paper patterns
per annum. The latter are as Greek to
the unlearned man, and foolishness to
the wisest of his sex. They are, in APP
pearance, large sheets of thin brown pa
per, covered with scores of intricate and
interlacing curves, and full of straight
lines and angles intersecting one anotn-
er in the most confusing and madden
ing way. But in these mysterious
hieroglyphics lie hidden the secrets of
skirts and the promise and potency of
waists and talmas and gussets of the ut
most magnifcence Woman can read
them with an ease that would put Cham
pollion and his ablest disciples to the
blush. She can translate them into silk
and poplin and calico without making
single error of scissorial syntax, and
without the slightest hesitation in that
intricate system of punctuation in which
"gathers and "yokes y and tucks "
take the place of commas and periods.
With the help of these patterns, the
Oshkosh woman clothes herself in style
materially different from that prevailing
among the lilies of the field, but much
more satisfactory to her personal
wishes. Shallow philosophers have
often wondered how it is that a
new bonnet which breaks out in New
York ON a given day will be found in
St. Louis three days later, and will
speed over the whole country with ra-
pidity that leaves the best time made by
a cholera epidemic far in the rear. 1t
is the enormous circulation of paper pat
terms which works this seeming miracle,
and to it alone is due the uniformity of
dress which characterizes our &c, coo, 900
of women.
In spite of the benefits which paper
patterns have conferred upon women,
these benefits have not been unalloyed
with evil. At least such is the opinion
of the wife and daughters of q newly
elected representative from one of our
western Territories. When this gentle
man-who may be called Smith-re-
ceived his certificate of election, his
family announced that they intended to
go to Washington with him, and to that
end must have some new and fashiona-
BILE clothes. Accordingly, they wrote to
a cousin residing in New York, and
asked for a supply of paper patterns of
the latest fashion. The cousin was an
estimable lady, who had kept with rei-
gious care nearly all the patterns that
had been issued for the last 20 years,
and she instantly complied with the re-
quest. The Smith family made their
new clothing in accordance with the
patterns received, and were somewhat
surprised to find how materially they
differed in style from the dresses worn
by the ladies at Fort Tecumseh. Like
prudent women, they wore their usual
clothes on the journey to Washington,
where they arrived on Saturday night
The next morning they dressed them
selves with great care, and accompanied
Mr.. Smith to the Third Baptist Church.
They went back to the hotel in tears,
and no sooner had they reached their
rooms than Mrs. Smith, in the presence
of her astonished husband, tore her
new dress instantly from her respecta-
BILE person, and trampled with fury on
her new hat. She then asserted that
Cousin Mary was, beyond all contro-
versy, the most wicked and unfeeline
woman that had ever lived. "What
did she send us fashions that were twen-
ty years old for? She wanted us to
make fools of ourselves by wearing
hoops and ridiculous bonnets, when not
another soul in Washington wears them!
III get even with that woman yet, if l
die for it." Thus the indignant and
wronged woman eased her mind, while
she hurriedly packed her trunk, and by
the early Monday train fed with her
daughters back to the secrecy of their
frontier home.
1t was all due to an error on the part
OF the well meaning cousin, who had
accidentally sent the fashion plates of
1858 instead of those of 1878. The
misery wrought by this mistake was
deep and lasting, and the incident,
painful as it was, is worth relating,
since it may warn other cousins to be
more careful, and incite other territorial
women to first make sure of the date of
their patterns before putting implicit
trust in them.
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