The Cecil Whig., 1885-06-06
LATE LONDON FASHIONS.
SoEo Waists that Are Regulation Size ard
Some Armless Suits.

soEe Waists that Are Regulation Size ard
Some Armless Suits.
From tie Pail iaU Gazette
A Frenchman said "a woman who re-
spects herself will not appear with
waist Of more than sixteen inches" and
the fashion plates obligingly sent me by
a West-End establishment place an
equally high degree of tightness before
our maids and matrons as the fashion,
able standard of perfection. AS from
tispiece, there is a handsome Paris
model" with a curious resemblance to
dromedary in the humped-back The
feet of the figure, which are, roughly
speaking, four or i've sizes smaller than
the hands, are encased in pointed toed
boots, in which the foot is thrown for
ward by the high heels. The poor thing
supports herself Oh parasol stick, and
greatly must she need a crutch, for her
chaussure is of the sort referred to by an
eminent surgeon when he said: "Any
one compelled to wear this form of shoe
will do well to begin by having the three
middle toes amputated. The loss of
these toes will not make her gait one
whit less awkward than it is at present,
and the lady will be saved great deal
of subsequent pain and Inconvenience"
| once heard an architect define a bon
net as "a mass Of irrelevancy," ard my
dromedary lady has tuft of this kind
on her head, but on her hair; or, to
speak more precisely, on somebody else's
hair, which is piled up high above her
head. The parasol is, doubtless, de-
putty bonnet, performing, when not
needed as prop, the functions Of shade
and shelter, which should, nationally
speaking, be the work of the head-gear.
The handsome Paris dromedary suit can
all be had for ten or eleven guineas.
With the forefnger of the right hand
the figure points to the region of the
liver, gesture fraught with sad sig
nifcance for creatures with sixteen-inch
waists and weight of steels, horsehair
and drapery depending therefrom.
Some people say that women are phys
ically weaker than men. | should much
like to see how even Samson Or Goliath
would get through days work if hab-
tied ON the lines laid down in the fashion
plates before NE. A careful calculation
has been made and recorded by Lady
Harherton of the weight Of women's
dress and its resisting force when the
wearer is in motion, and it was shown to
hinder movement quite twice as much as
does a mans ordinary dress. Mr.. Treves
writes: at is of little use to attempt to
advise q woman to take ten miles
walk, in place Of sitting veR-a-fre, if
that walk involves the dragging about of
a great weight of clothes that, by dang
( ling about the legs, adds to the burden
( to be born2.'
Then we have a 'syisite" without arms
or any proper az commodatiou for those
useful appendages-in fact, the wearer
of the garment would the better suit her
visite if born armless. Will taiors and
dressmakers ever consider what is the
form they hare to clOthe? VIII they
never learn that the function of dress, as
DR.. Roth and common sense say, is ''to
protect oUr bodies and maintain an even,
healthy temperature all over them?'
Does it never occur to them that they
are Sewing shroud as well as silken
straight, waistcoat every time they make
these vice-likc bodiccs, with enormously
heavy, Enthusiastically disp ,sed skirts? An
/ American physician who holds that the
| lower extremities OF fashionable wo-
| man are imperfectly, and certainly inju-
| dici0usly, covered, described ''the legs
rs ''clad with one thickness of cotton"
going "paddling along under balloon"
or an inverted bell Of irregular outline
But, returning to my plates, find a
''superb MANTLE with broad level top
to its ''nying bu.tress' which would be
admirably useful did the wearer ever
want to carry tea-tray there. Further
on find three clildren's costumes, the
"stylish," charming" and 'fsh-wife;"
their short, bunched-up skirts, tip tilted
like the petal of flower at the back,
recall in outline the fantail pigeon or the
domestic hen, blown along before a sharp
gale. 1t is dcsocration to tick out little
children in such a garb.