Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1880-01-03
FASHION PLATES.

Man. as distinguished from woman; has no con-
ception of the vast influence exerted by the
tered over the land by the publishers of women's
periodicals. When the present generation was
young, the fashion plate was regarded solely as
beauty, and not guide to the tailoring or dress
making intellect. In that remote and simple
time, the bar-room of the country tavern was
cendent trousers and glor1fied coats: and the
legend "Genio C. Scott" appended to these pic
lures, was properly esteemed to be that OF
renowned painter. Occasionally country
tailor displayed one of Mr.. Scott's beautiful
works on the wall of his shop, but he never
dreamed that earthly coats and realistic trouS
ideal When Genio Scott died. a few weeks
ago, generation that did not remember him as
maker of tailors patterns mourned him exclu-
siyely as an eminent fishing person, learned in
flies and unrivaled in his judgment as to to bait;
but in the Businesses OF the Berkshire county
hill towns and the remote villages OF Morn ern
still survives, and his fashion-plate5 are still
treasured In the ''spare chamber or the keep
ing-room" as among the grandest works of mod
ern painters and the only worthy rivals of the
paintings In the Washington Capitol.
1t Is only within the last twenty years that
the true uses of fashion plates have become
familiar to the American people. At the pres
ent day it is estimated that every American
woman consumes an average quantity Of five
fashion plates and seventeen paper patterns per
annum: The latter are as Greek to the un-
his sex. They are, In appearance, large sheets
of thin brown paper, covered with scores of In
tricate and curves and full Of straight
lines and angles intersecting one another in the
most confusing and maddaning. 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 utmost
magniticence. Woman can read them with an
ease that would put Champolllon and his ablest
disciples to the blush. She can translate them
into silk and poplin and calico without making
a single error of scissorial syntax, and with
out the slightest hesitation In that
intricate system Of punctuation in
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. Shall
low philosophers have often wondered how 1t is
that new bonnet which breaks out in New
three days later, and will speed over the whole
country with a rapidlty that leaves the best time
made by cholera epidemic far in the rear. 1t
is the enormous circulation of paper patterns
which works this seeming miracle, and to it
alone Is due the uniformity of dress which char
acterizes our twenty million 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 a
newly elected Representative from one of our
western territories. When this gentleman
who may be called Smith-received his certif-
cate OF election his family announced that they
intended to go to Washington with him, and to
that end must have some new and fashionable
clothes Accordingly, they wrote to a cousin
residing in New York. and asked for supply Of
paper patterns of the latest fashion. The cousin
was an esttmable lady, who had kept with re-
ligiOuS care nearly all the patterns that had
been issued for the last twenty years, ana she
instantly complied with the request. 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 Washing
ton where they arrived on Saturday night. The
next morning they dressed themselves with
great care, and accompanied MI. 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 huS-
band, tore her new dress instantly from her re-
spectacle person and trampled with fury on her
new hat She then asserted that cousin Mary
was beyond all controversy the most wicked
and unfeeling woman that had ever lived
What did she send us fashions that were
twenty years old for? She wanted US to make
fools of ourselves by wearing hoops and rid1eu-
Washington wears them! I'll get even with
that woman yet, If die for it." Thus the ia
dignant and wronged woman eased her mind,
while she hurriedly packed her trunk, and by
the early Monday train fled with her daughters
| back to the secrecy of their frontier home.
well-meaping cousin, who had accidentally sent
the fashion-plates Of 1858 instead of those of
1873. 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 1ncte other ter
ritorial women to first make sure OF the date of
| their patterns before putting implicit trust in
them.-[NY. Times.