Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1885-06-18

An item is going the rounds of the
papers to the effect that the old fash
ioned hoop skirts are coming into style
again, and that within a year the hoop
skirt factories that have been lying
idle for years will be running full
blast, and the ladies will grow larger
around as the fashion is recognized as
Tie thing. Who that was on earth
twenty-five years ago, does not Uemem-
Der the first hOopskirt craze? Hoops
came into fashion suddenly, and all
women, whatever their condition.
adopted the fashion ut once TaJre
were few regular manufactured hoop
skirts at first, and only those who were
very tony had elaborate hoops, but as
hoops were the fashion everybody had
to have something that would make
the dress stick out. Merchants sold
wire and rattan, and whale bone, aud
strips of brass, and ladies made them
into skirts, and some of them were
200 ridiculous for anything. A lady
would get her hoops made and find
that the skirt of her dress was so small
that she would have to use a shoe horn
to get the skirt over the hoops, or
grease the hoops, and then the dress
was so tight over the hoops that every
hoop showed as plainly as though il
had been on the outside. some queer
scenes were Witnessed when hoops
first came in. Ladies were not accus.
toned to walking in q barrel, and the
hoops would act awfully contrary, and
show themselves on slight provication.
Modest ladies were frequently made
to blush by some act of tho hoops,
which seemed to be endowed with as
much cussedneSs as mule. The
wcarer of hoop could never be en-
tirely certain what an hour would
bring forth. The hoop was liable to
20 along all right, and appear to I'M
deTstand its business, and to have de-
Cided to be decent, and when the
wearer attempted to go into door,
the hoops would get on strike, and
the lady couldn't drive it in with
club. Men were constantly laughing
at some eccentricity they discovered
In the hoops. Train conductors Gu
iOycd a constant picnic in helping
stranded females who got cast in try
ing to enter a car, or a car seat. Ladies
who could not afford to buy the expcn.
hoops of barrels, and many lady has
50 ingeniously pressed a barrel hoop
into the service as TO pass for lead
err of the fashion, until some day she
attempted to sit down in pew ut
church, when the hoop would flop up
and strike her on the nose two or three
times, and leave her in a situation so
uncomfortable as to bring tears TO her
eyes. II is a mean hoop that will
strike a lady, and a meaner hoop that
will strike her on the nose, and a con-
founded sight meaner hoop that will
repeat the blow two or three times,
but there are ladies living to-day with
scars on their noses made from these
hoops. Schoolgirls would wear bar,
rel hoops, and it was an ImpOssibility
to keep them anywhere except where
they ought not to be, and there are
men living to-day, who were boys
twenty-five years ago, who could re-
late a good deal that they ought not
to about tho way the girls were made .
ashamed of the fashions. Later, hoop
skirts were reduced to a science, like
making watches, and the ladies be- |
came so accustomed to wearing them
that nothing ever happened worth /
mentioning, but when two lady friends f..
of the first hoop year get together to |
talk over old times, and they get on
the subject of those old fashioned
hoop skirts and their experiences, they
can keep the children of the present .
day laughing until their sides ache. /
Ladies who are leaders of fashion, and .
eminent in the affairs of the world to-
day, can remember when they took the !
first hoop off a flour barrel and basted !
it iuto the bottom hem of a calico /
dress. and felt as proud as queens, as
thew sailed down the village streets, |
with everybody looking at them. /
Tragedies were enacted in the early /.
days Of hoop-skirts A lady who IS
now the wife of senator, carries a I.
scar on the calf of her leg which |
causes her to often wonder, rs she sits I
in the senate gallery, whether II was /
the dog, which got into her hoop-skirt 4
one day, TO hide away from cruel boys, I.
that had bit her, or whether corner
of barrel-hoop stuck through her /
stocking. If she was sure IL was tine \
hoop she wouldn't be half as nervous 4
about herself as she is when she sees a I
dog near her. And so hoops are com |
ing into style again? Well, let them |
come. In the language Of the lamented (
Patrick Henry, I'VE repeat ii, sir, Jet /
them come, and be darned TO en-
PCck's SlEa.
Mamma said Freddy Papy MAY, 80
sounds ever get druuklr "Wha. a silly ques 1
80 =. - t9g.,.y,bar stNyan I d,,,st c,re 4