Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-24
A WORD FOR PAsH1oa.


people in brief time where wisdom, di- |
vested of the fashion quality, could not |
have driven them in a century. The |
thoughtful viii view this advancement |
with profound satisfaction, because it is
progress from the expensive to the eco.
nonic, from the heavy and uncomfortable
to the light and easy, from the unhealthful
level to the higher plane OF sanitary excel
lence. 1t involves. however, still greater
value, in that it aids in that great leveling
process which is silently but surely going
on in the social world, and is bringing the
habits of life and methods OF living of the
people nearer to common and at the
same time higher plane 1t is divesting
wealth OF the necessity for such lavish ex-
penditure upon It's surroundings, and is
enabling modest competence to accommo-
date itself more readily to the accepted
social standard. An examination OF a very
few details will illustrate these thoughts.
Furniture has always been the slave of
architecture, has followed captive in It's
wake. In the sixteenth century it repre-.
sented the voluptuousness of the age, and
as a recent thoughtful writer remarks.
g the last century revolted against it, and
the simplicity resulting was an architect
ural protest. In the nineteenth century
We have broken away from the conven.
tionalities of building art, and our archi-
lecture has become the embodiment of
new ideas, and spirit of tolerance and
independence. The result seen in the social
leyeling process is also now being typifed
in the adornment of our homes. Thus,
the cumbrous, straight backed chair, with
its carved fortunes to rack and cruelty the
frame, has given way to graceful forms,
and a total absence of infections, while the
most economic woods, simply finished, are
considered the most stylish The brittle
and fragile structures of cold and classical
uniformity, which awed us into solemnity
as we entered the old-time home, ard
warned the sitter to utilize them with
the greatest caution, have given place to
the plain, strong, bent woods, or other
uncaryed, enduring materials-the inde-
structable, simple and inviting, which are
made for use, and not for ornament alone,
and between which there is so little uni
formity of style that the more varied the
more fashionable they are. Heavy and
costly tapestries and solemn draparies have
yielded at our bed windows to lighter
materials less capable of harboring the
germs of disease or excluding the pure air
indeed to such an extent has this fashion
gone that the cheapest of known cloths,
the thin and creamy tinted cheese cloth,
such as incloses the butter we receive from
market, is now utilized for drawing-room
curtains, while the cheap material of which
grain sacks are made is worked up into
lambrequins and mantel hangings. Cabi-
nets, charges, book cases and side boards
are no longer heavy affairs involving small
fortunes; are no longer themselves SO
ornamental as to subordinate their con-
tents, but a few square sticks nailed to-
gether, stained with logwood, hecked with
vinegar and steel filings, or lacquered, or
wrapped with soft and sober tinted cloths,
form either or all Of the articles. Hereto
fore mantels have been solemnly cold and
funereal specimens of the work of the chisel,
and by their cost have been excluded from
the poor man S home. Now, under the wand
of the new fashion they vanish, and in
their stead is simple deal board cut into
graceful lines and covered by the skill OF
the housewife with such material as her
taste and capacity justifies. The carpet
has heretofore been the boundary line
between poverty and comfort, but sanitary
science has laid its heavy hand upon it
and decided its abolition. In It's place are
cool mattings, polished woods, rug dressed
floors or loose cloths, especially the latter
that may be daily gathered up and ex-
posed to the purifying influences of sun
and air. Indeed while it is probable that
the carpet will be the last to yield, it is
certain that it is the receptacle for many
germs of disease, fills the air with fine
particles that are detrimental to healthful
action of the lungs, and lead US to init
mate acquaintance with pulmonary COM
plants.
These are but very few of the innova.
tions of modern art in home adornment,
but will serve to indicate the prevailing
tendency, and to outline fashion which,
held within the bounds of reason, must
exercise wide influence upon the coming
generation, inasmuch as it cultivates indie
pendence in taste, takes our homes
more out of the hands OF the
upholsterers and furniture dealers,
who have too long been high priests and
dletators in the household, but will, under
the new order of things, be relegated to
their proper positions as merchants pand
| furnishers of materials to order. Besides
this, the new era of household furnishing,
while greatly marred by the extreme to
which bric-a brac decoration has gone, will
have its influence in culturing our women
in useful handiwork, in charging and at
the same time simplifying their tastes, and
in intoxicating aesthetic views concerning
home adornment, modified from the lofty
severity and elaborateness of the past, to
the graceful economy of modern practical
ism and independence. All this must tend
to make our homes more pleasant, more in
viting, and necessarily more enduring, and
as result contribute still more TO national
and social stability and advancement.
/ GOVERNMENT BY DEPARTMENTS.
Ex-Secretary Carl Schurz has recently