The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1881-06-15
THE cLoTHEs OF TEE pFRTon

The colors of the clothes of the period
exercise the male mind as severely as do
the cut. Why do women with red or vel
lowish hair wear dead" gold, and greens
that remind the beholder of badly-cooked
vegetables? Why do pale faced, brown
haired women wear the deep red and
orange hues which can ego" only with tie
olive and ponegranate tints, and the blue
black hair of the South? Who is account
able for the terrible terra cote garments
in which some otherwise harmless maidens
pervade fashionable crowds, inspiring the
observer with wonder, totally unmixed
with admiration girls array in
shapeless clothes, made apparently of slices
of the wall of the new history museum at
South Kensington; strong minded young
women in aggressive cloaks, so unspeak-
ably hideous that we sigh for the ulster of
last season, which we then believed could
not be surpassed in odious; awful things,
made of sage green twisted with blue frills,
or gosling wooden stuff tipped
with pink The eel-skin style has
been succeeded by the bog, and
though the latter is more decent, it is not
less ugly A woman with high mar
row shoulders and thin, long arms, might
do better than array himself in black
satin bag, with a running string at the
neck and at the waist, piping (such
we were assured by a sympathetic friend
of the offenders own sex, is the correct
term by which to describe this contrivance),
from which the skirt hangs shapeless to
within an inch of the ankles; and she
might crown the ediflce more becomingly
than with bonnet-or was it hat-like
nothing in nature except crumpled cab
bage This .cosey,p as an adjunct to the
tea table, is of dubious elegance, as well
as unquestionably fatal to drinkable tea;
but when adapted as a cape to the shout
ders of blooming girlhood forming q
straight line across the middle of it's back
and cutting its sleeves in two just above
the elbow. it is the very most unsightly
piece of dress that can be put on, especial
ly if it is of a sickly color. Salmon-pink
satin, lining big bonnet of crinkly crino
line, looking like half dozen shells joined
at the edges would be trying to the best
compilations: it was consoling to see it
applied only to the worst. Why should
a very pretty lady wear fiat gown of a
peculiarly repulslve green in color, but
of rich velvet in material, and over it
hideous camlet cloak of another
and, if possible, more repulsive green, with
bunch of yellowish ribbon on the back,
and plush bonnet like the vizor of a
knights helmet? Why should writing
people, painting people, singing people,
persons presumably intelligent, since they
all do something that pleases the public,
and is paid for in money, array themselves
in garments, of price indeed-shabbiness
is not the note of the popular affectation
but which render them distressingly con-
spicious? These questions cannot fail to
occur to men observing the humors of a
select crowd, and especially as the dress of
''the conflicting gender tends more and
more to simplicity. OF course, there viii
always be affected male idiots, long haired
and short-haired, with neckties that make
us stare, and hats that make us wink with
their brilliancy; but these are the mere
''brats' of society, they are too insignif
cant to be offensive. Women are never
insignificant, and that they should be in
fected with eccentricity and affectation on
the scale Of the present manifestation of
these maladies, is deplorable. Nile Spec
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