Morning journal and courier., 1886-12-15
She Protests.

l Sn0 AsF0BG8t8e
 tFrom the Chicago Tribune
 The world has resolved itself into @ vas
 fretting society of late, and the theme of iti
 discourse is what to do with our girls. Every
 belonging of hers from her soul to her high
 heeled shoes is discussed with anxiety. It if
 suspected that it is this responsibility that iE making our men bald-headed. A learned doctor of laws in the East lately contended | that they could not succeed in business on
 account of the quantity of their crinoline.
 It is privately maintained by many that she cannot make her mark while she continues
 to wear bustles. There is general supposi- tion that she is the victim of chronic ill- l health and the slave of her looking glass A large amount of this misapprehension is | tn result of ignorance on the part of the m uline portion of mankind. They believe | that woman's dress is uncomfortable, | unhealthy and foolish. Notwithstanding this fact they immediately resent any practi- cal attempt at reforming it, and the promul- gators of such reforms have always met with their undisguised contempt. A suggestion, | amicably given, that 8 reform is not needed may adjust matters to an extent.
 To begin with there is the corset, which almost worries the life out of men. Know then there is no more comfortable garment than the corset. 1t is logically impossible for any man to contradict this statement in telligently. Fools may lace and make them selves uncomfortable. The majority of wo- men are not fools. Even men, being the progeny of women, will in protection of their personal dignity be willing to admit this. A corset with elastic sides, laced to exactly fit the body, holds all of the clothes firmly in place, makes an erect position 8
 pleasure, and gives look of unauestionable
 neatness to the dress. There is an idea that
 they compress the lungs; they do not, for
 they do not reach to the lungs. People
 maintain that they injure the backbone by
 teaching it to rely upon artificial support.
 This is not true, for they are open at the
 back, and nothing but an interlacing of hex-
 ible cords unites them.
 The hustle causes man more anxiety than
 all the sins of the masculine sex put togeth
 CT. He worries and writes and breaches about it's weight. That is because he has never felt of one. They are not heavy. They are made of wire or cloth stuffed with hair, and when they are firmly fastened about the
 waist they take the weight of the skirts from the hips and support it. The dragging feel ing that the two or three skirts and the dresses give is quite eased. One becomes unconscious both of tho skirts and the bus tie.
 As to whether pettieoats are pernicious or not is another question. They are very pop ular. And besides there is no alternative except trousers, which man guards with a frenZied fury.
 Then there is false hair This has turned many a masculine head gray with thinking on it's iniquity and folly. He fears the con sequence of overheating the head with it. He shudders to think it may have been cut from the head of dead pauper, or made from grass or animal hairi As for the heat ing of the head, it heats no more than tLe same quantity of ir which grows upon the head, and if woman has enough natural hair to make her coiffure look well she does not use false hair. As men do not distress themselves over any quantity of hair which adheres to the head, they have no occasion to fret over the same amount of foreign ma terial; for only so much hair can be used to advantage, and no sane woman is going to load her head down with something that oIly has the effect of making her look ugly. As to the 'sdead pauper" cry, it matters little whether it came from the head of 8 pauper or millionaire if it. be clean and fine and made to match. Probably the principal ob lection to false hair is that it is unromantie. A lover doesn't like to have his mistress tresses laid in the bureau drawer over night. But then neither does the mistress like it. It is her misfortune that she has not hair enough to render herself beautiful in her 1over's eyes, and having it not, she should be
 
 should be admired for her ingenious method of hiding her disability.
 The powder box and the rouge brush have also distracted anxious man for centuries. There is very we'll sustained objection to these, though it is not the one which is usu- ally made, and that is that they seldom de- ceive The motive with which they are em ployed is merely to beautify. Who shall say that that is reprehensible? But the device is not good. Besides the effect of some sorts of powders is said to be really injurious. But any man would rather look at 8 face softeped by little rice powder than at one with shiny nose and greasy looking fore head. Pallor is not unbecoming. Women ought to learn this and make up in the bril- l liancy of their dress what they lack in com plexion. A little study will soon teach them l how to become effective. Women ought to ! study their dress 8 great deal. They are 1 most of them naturally asthetic and possess l 8 refined eye for color, and it devolves upon | them to preserve the art of fine dressing, l which is one of the crowning accomplish | ments of all highly civilized nations and 1 which would soon die out if were left to the 1 men, who have steadily degenel ated in this l particular for the last two centuries.
 Bangs have likewise caused much agony of l mind among the men. Bangs were objec- l tionable when they were unbecoming. Some l women look heavenly in them. Such should I always wear them. And after the last word | is said, and man has how1ed his loudest l howl, it will be observed that he always pre- fers to go out with the stylish and handsome 1 woman rather than the badly dressed and plain one, and that he prefers the woman of l cultivated address and fni shed coquetry to | the one of bald commonplaces. Some men do not want women in business the man says it is unwomanly. He will | not share his pipe, his trousers, his politics, ] his liquors nor his liberty with her, and he l is not even willing to leave her the innocent l accoutrements with which she makes herself l to him. He recommends her | to stay in the house, but he will not stay l there with her. He takes offence if she has l ideas and resents it if she has not. He calls ] her crank if she evolves theory and a non l entity if she does not. It would seem to 1 an observer from another sphere that man | does not want woman. Perhaps then after 1 all woman was not made for man. Who knowsa l