The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1886-10-06
MANY YEARS AGO
WOMEN OIIlpT WEAR WARM CLOTH
ING AND OFTEN CAUGHT COLDS.


1t Was the Fashion to Go About in Lou-
Necked Dresses and Short Sleeves in
Winter, and Most of Them Married at
Sixteen.
have a dear old friend-a genuine @lady
OF the old school, who has a hobby. 1t is the
precocity Of the present age.
"Pray, madam, how old were you when you
were marrieds" asked her one day.
She hesitated, and the blood rose little in
her delicate old face.
"Just 49," she responded.
After awhile it all leaked out. Most of the
girls of her day were married at 10 and II
often at Is. AL of her sisters were married
before they were 90 Then, after little dip
lomacy, she gave some particulars Of the way
they did it fifty years ago. Hygiene was not
invented then; even the name was not known.
The wonder is how any OF the children sur
vived to be women, and how any of the
women survived at all. Nobody but men
wore flannel; my old friend told me that
the young ladies couldn't, positively couldn't.
"Why not!"
because they wore low-necked frocks all
the year round In winter they wore capes
to cover their bare shoulders OF course,
they were not strictly decollette, but the most
delicate part of the chest and between the
shoulders was exposed. The little girls wore
not only ow-necked, but short-sleeved, woolen
dresses, with nothing over their poor little
chests and arms but thin muslin apron"
"Poor things" said, show they must have
shook and shivered-in the good old days.
Fancy one of the little girls of to-day, clothed
in warm flannel from her neck to her heels,
with stout wooden stockings coming quite
over the knees, compelled to adopt the COS
tune Of the good old daysl"
"Then, the babies Bare armed and bare
necked, too except in the coolest weather,
when they had a thin merino sack put on
them"
"Poor babies" said l. "The general idea
seemed to he to expose the neck and arms as
much as possible, under the most adverse cir
cumstances. Wasn't there a good deal OF
rheumatism in the good old timer
II am afraid must say yes." replied my
old friend, doubtfully. "All middle-aged
people, it seems to me, had the rheumatism
then. And they don't seem to me now," CON
tinued the dear old lady, ito have made any
change in their clothing according to varia-
tions in the weather. No dress waists for
summer Were lined. The line between sum-
mer and winter clothes was rigidly drawn
In May, ladies put away all their thick
dresses, and wore nothing but the thinnest
course, we had cold snaps, but we managed
to shiver through them in our airy garments
If had gone and put on a thick frock, as
my daughter does when the Thermometer
gets down to so, would have been thought
crazy. Besides, they were all packed away.
"The one thing which they wore without
regard to its seasonableness was a bonnet A
woman in moderate circumstances fifty years
ago seldom had but one bonnet, and that she
wore until she wore it out, summer and
winter. II the bonnet gave out in summer,
most likely she bought a straw or drawn silk
bonnet, which she wore the next winter with
out occasioning remark; and if it was winter
she bought velvet bonnet, perhaps, and
wore it bravely through the dog days. Dun
stable Sonnets were very fashionable when
was girl. They were kind of plated
straw, but they melted away if water
touched them. A rain storm was death to
them Dunstable bonnets and percussion
caps appeared about the same time, and a
good many people confused the names and
called them Dunstable caps and percussion
bonnets."
"How about the shoes, In these bad mod
ern times any young woman appearing on the
street in cloth CATERS would be thought a
lunatic- Nothing is admissible except a regu-
lar kid or leather walking shoe, substantially
cut and made"
"rm afraid, sighed the dear old soul, that
we didn't even always wear cloth CATERS.
Many a day in winter have gone down the
street in low cut cloth shoes and silk stock
ings. Indeed, that was considered the only
correct wear for young woman with any
pretensions to elegance"
Il have seen some of those old CATERS"
remarked, with gentle malice. "They barely
came to the ankle; they were of the thinnest
kind of cloth, and the soles were no soles at
all-scarcely thicker than good wrapping
paper. l would be afraid to go around the
corner in such shoes"
Il am afraid girls had a good many colds
and coughs y my old friend sighed.
II should think So" replied
"Then rs to wraps" she continued, lit was
the height of every girls ambition to have a
Canton Grape shawl. If girl had one she
wore it. no matter how cold it might be-
was pretty cold, l remember, one January
day, with nothing around me but a silk shawl,
but didn't mind it. Then, we couldn't walk
fast to keep up our circulation. 1t was proper
for ladies to walk in slow and leisurely
manner"
'That, together with the insufficient cloth
ing and scanty food you allowed yourselves,
must have made you rather pale and nerve
less"
"Well, it was not considered elegant ~ re-
marked the old lady, "for young girls to eat
much. A delicate appetite was considered re-
fined and interesting. As to sleeping rooms,
it is true that we had open tireplaces, which
afforded some ventilation, but none of the
windows let down from the top of course we
couldn't have u current Of fresh air through
our bedrooms. We slept on feather beds
They lasted a long time. Sometimes they
were in use fifty years When l walked up in
the morning usually felt dull and heavy.
In the summer we had mattresses put on top
OF the feather beds. There We're very few
hair mattresses in those days Most of them
were Of corn shucks, with an occasional corn
cob thrown h"-New York Mail and Ex-
press.
A Curious Chinese Myth.