The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1881-10-13
SOME or FASHIONS ForBLEs.

The general newspaper reader tires OF po-
litical articles all the time in the paper, and
likes now and then diversity in the shape
of an editorial on ethics, art, science, local
matters. literature or something OF that
kind; therefore, we this morning serve the
HrRALps readers with o short essay on
some of the foibles and follies of fashion,
An exchange says: "Has that woman call
to be wife, who thinks more of her silk
dress than her children, and visits her
nursery no ottener than once day? has
that woman call to be wife who cries for
Cashmere shawl when her husbands notes
are being protested? Has that woman call
to be wife who sits reading the last novel
Mhile the husband stands before the glass
vainly trying to pin together buttonless
shirt bosom Has that woman call to be
wife who expects her husband to swallow
diluted coffee, soggy bread, smoked tea ana
watery. potatoes, six days in seven?
Has she call to be wife who flirts with
every man she meets, and reserves her
frowns for her own firesidc? Has she call
TO be wife who comes down to breakfast
in abominable curl papers, a soiled dressing
gown, and shoes down at the heel? Has
she a call to be wife whose husbands
love weighs naught in the balance with her
next door neighbours damask curtain or vel
vet carpet? Has she a call to be wife who
would take advantage of a moment of con-
iugal weakness to extort money or exact q
promise? Has she a call to be wife who
takes journey for pleasure, leaving her
husband to toll in a close office, and have an
eve. when at home to servants and chill
dren? Has she a call to be wife to whom
n good husbands society is not the
greatest of earthly blessings, and q
house full of rosy children, its best
furnishing and prcttiest adornment?
Woman who proposes to be a wife, ought
not to do, and there is much of wisdom,
much of counsel really contained in the
above, except which the woman of the age
could profit by if they would pay proper
heed to them. What with the expensive
wardrobes the young, middle-aged and old
women of our day and time require of their
husbands and fathers; what, with their
bangs, their frizzes, their hoop-skirts, their
gloys-fitting corsets, their ten and twenty
and forty button kid gloves, their high
heelcd shoes, their clicked and striped
hose their paniers, redingotes, polonaises,
the silks and satin dresses, their scarfs and
bills at Worths and Tiffanys and other sim
liar places, husbands and fathers are kept
busily liquidating accounts. 1t is
| ~, u-hn lnoI- falls in
cotton, happy puts and calls in
stocks and scientific manipulation
+ in futures that can keep them going
Times have wonderfully changed since petro-
leum was discovered bubbling up amid
the rocks of Pennsylvania and contracts
for shoddy goods for the army during the
late war made sudden milionaires, to day
nothing Of the various orders of spscula-
ton and the mines of Nevada, Colorado,
New Mexico, California and Arizona.
Our grsnd-mothsrs were content to wear
/ homespun, the thread having been spun
and the cloth woven by themselves, and
| they nursod their babies while they were
doing the spinning and the weaving and
| they cooked and they washed too. Our grand
mothers were good, pure women and they
were honest and happy. Tho votaries of
fashion nowadays, who can't get their
dresses low enough in the neck or long
enough in the trail, who let their babies
make their own way in the world under
the guidance of hired and irresponsible
nurses, not only succeed in making their
homes unhappy, making their husbands
bibblers and gamblers-for the ventures on
futures and i'm stocks are as much gambling
rs putting money on the turn Of a card at n
faro bank-and, more than that, they arc
destroying their own lives and peace ofmind
and building up woe for their offspring.
We say they are building up woe for their
offspring. because the children who are
left by their mother to the care Of nurses
while they spend their time at routs balls,
theatres and other designations during the
night and asleep in the day are always
dosed by said nurses with soothing syrups
made up of laudanum and other opiates,
and when they grow up, If they survive the
various attacks Of this character made
upon their constitutions, they DO
so with craving and appetite
for stimulants and opiates, and their bodies
and minds thus subordinated TO dire curse,
are diseased. il Is only in the great cities
that these evils we are but family portray
ing exist. and # IS great pleasure to us to
know that they are unknown among Texan
women, or at least they exist, II at oil, In 80
light a degree that they are scarcely per
ceptible. With Col. Bob Ineersoll, we be-
lieve that rich people should spend their
money lsvishly, and It is well enough that
the bchests 81 fashion should be obeyed in
90 far a. dress is concerned to reasonable
extent BY those who are able 10 do 80, but
when fashion would make mothers and
daughters forget home and it's joys, its de-
nands for the designations Of the ballroom,
and similar places. we say the true woman
viii not yield. prefsrring rather to worship
At home altars where indeed she is a
prissts- Of supremest joy, when she 50
wills