Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-05-29
TEE LADIES.
SUBJECTS WHICH CONCERN THEN
ALONE,
And into Which the Gentlemen
Have No Right TO Make
Any Inquiry.

With woman's natural love of beauty
and color, added to the astonishing pre-
MUM placed upon " good clothes" by So
ciety and the press, we are not surprised
that the horizon of so many women's lives
are bounded by dry goods establishments,
and the dictionary of their language con-
tanned in the bazars of fashion. We have
| jest tossed aside a recent number of one of
| the most influential journals of the East,
! twelve pages of which are filled with what
purports to be a record of American So
ciety, past and present, and a list of names
are given of women in New York, Phila-
delphia, Washington and Louisville, who
are to be handed down to posterity as
| famous for what? For their helpfulness
to the age they lived in? For earnest
work for the future? For an unseltsh
hospitality? For having developed and
consecrated to friends their best gift of
song or conversation? MOI but for the
quality of the dry goods they wore. Twelve
pages and hot a hint that one OF these
ladies gave utterance to a brilliant
thought, a suggestive repartee, but that
| like a procession of wax figures
they passed before the admiring world,
habited as follows: Mrs. - appeared in
many elegant robes; her evening toilets
were as follows, etc, etc, etc. In the name
of womanhood, we protest, and Tor the
sake of American girlhood, we beg the
editors of our representative journals to
put premium upon something in the
world besides dry goods. In every city,
the homes which have become true literary
centers-the rare places where genuine
manhood and womanhood are recognized,
despite the awkward setting OF plain attire,
are passed by in contempt, in making up a
social record 10 show the progress of the
last century, so long as women are content
to be judged only by the amount OF ex-
pensive dry goods they wear, so long will
they be subject to much criticism. In a
girl, however pretty, what is there to inter-
est one if they read nothing in her face,
from time TO time, but that she is getting
daily more worn and faded in the search
for rich husband? But give her one
genuine, one DISTINGUISHED taste, and all
is changed. Girls entering the world,
determined to run the worldly course,
would say this to you. Try to win
for yourselves one taste of q truer and
deeper sort. Study Wordsworth and some
parts of Shelley open your sympathles, by
their aid in one direction. Learn TO love
The woods, the wild flowers with all their
infinite changes of scent, and color
and sound the ripping stream, the rolling
mists. Let these things grow to haunt you
like passion, and then by..and by go look
into the looking-glass and study your own
face. Hasn't some new look come into
your eyes, and given them expression-a
something they wanted before? Aye, more
and more, dear girls, to-day intoxicated
eneryated by the strange passion for dress
begin to study humanity; determine to dc
something toward making life brighter fol
other people, and get into the habit o
sometimes studying the old gold and Grim
son, the lovely rose, and dreamy blue, OIL
pearl-tinted gray of Gods sunset clouds
lift your eye just above the shop windows
and honor the woman whose conversation
is filled with pearls of thought, and rubie:
of wit, and diamonds of suggestions, anC
then shall you have filled one claim to q
place in the record of Americas true
women.-Hancockt a. Observer.
TIGHT LAcING TO BE FASHIONABLE.
Is it true" was asked one of our best
known modistes, that tight lacing is com
ing into fashion again ?"
"Y Yes, it is true. You see it is fashion
able for ladies to be broad-shOuldered anC
small-waisted, and customers of mine
whose clothes | used to make from twenty
three to twenty-seven inches, waist meas
ure now have them fully five inches
smaller. Only year ago natural waist
measuring say from twenty-five to twenty
seven inches, was considered graceful and
pretty, which it really is, but now it is moi
fashionable to measure more than from
eighteen to twenty-three. OF course the
lacing is done by means of the corset, but
sometimes | nearly break my fingers trying
to fit and close basques that are SO tight
| they will not meet without an effort
While everything must be very tight in the
waist, breadth and fullness about the shout
ders and bust are striven after, as they
| serve by contrast to intensity the seeming
smallness of the waist. Do use padding
Oh, yes lots of it. The holiows between
the shoulders and under the arms are filled
out with it, and in some cases one whole
| shoulder is made with it. notably where
one shoulder is higher than the other
Everything must fit skin tight these days
and if one has not a good figure it must be
made good. A favorite method of proceed
ure is to fit first on the figure lining, on
| which the figure is built out with cotton
wherever needed. Over this is fitted a sec
ond lining, and then comes the dress ma
terial.-Baltimore Sun.
MAKING HER THINGS LAST.
Every kousekeeper knows how careful
treatment keeps table-linen and household
1 furniture. Girls do not always know or
remember that great care of their own lit
tie possessions will often enable then to
dress nicely on very little money. A lady
says when | was a girl there was one
of my young friends who was distinguished
for making her things last Her dress,
hats, gloves and ribbons were marvel of
durability. / used to wonder how she
managed TO make them last so without
their looking shabby, but ceased to do so
after | had visited her at her own home.
The reason why her clothes wore so long
was that she took such good care of them.
Her dresses were brushed and folded away
carefully, and the slightest spot on them
was removed as soon as it was discovered.
Her hat was wrapped in an old pocket
handkerchief, and put away in box as
soon as done with, the strings and
laces being Strengthened and rolled out
most symmetrically each time Her
gloves were never folded together, but were
pulled out straight and laid fiat in a box,
one upon the other, each time they were
used, the tinist hole being mended almost
before it had time to show itself But the
thing that impressed me most was the care
she bestowed upon her ribbons. When
making up bows she used to line the upper
part of the ribbon with white paper and
this not only prevented the ribbon from
becoming limp and creased, but kept i,
clean. so that when the bow was soiled on
one side she could turn the ribbon, and
the part that had been covered came out
looking new and fresh. That girl married
and brought up large family. Her hus-
band had to fight his way, and did SC
bravely, and was unusually successful, foI
be became wealthy. But his prosperity
was due quite as much to his wife's care
and economy in saving money as it was
to his in making it. GOOD Cheer
BAGGY HYGIENIc GARMENTS OF cRANKs.
" If the lecturers on modern dress" said
a physician to me, " in relation TO health
and disease would only be little more
eonsiderate of personal appearance and
not always upset their arguments by advo-
eating combinations and stockings oil
wool, WOODEN union garment, with di-
vided skirt and a dress, there would be
some use in their preaching. But both
men and women who deliver themselves
to the scary instruction relative to the
abandonment Of fashionable dress always
90 step too far. They will net be moder-
ate. They will allow of no medium way
for women to look graceful and pretty
while conforming TO these abom-
Unable hygienic principles. Women
ought 10 be told that wheH they
bare their shoulders below certain point
they expose the upper lobes of the lssngs-