The daily herald. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1886-1887, 1886-10-29
MANY YEARS AGO
WOMEN DIDN'T WEAR WARM CLOTH
ING AND OFTEN CAUGHT COLDS.

INV NM VT EN OftO0Fli COIOO.
1t Was the Fashion to Go About In Low
Necked Dresses and Short sleeves in
Winter, and Most of Them Married at
Sixteen.
have dear old friend--a genuine 'lady
of the old school, !" who has Ia hobby. IL is the
precocity of the present age.
"Pray, madam, how old were you when you
were marriedr asked her one day.
She hesitated and the blood rose little in
her delicate old face
"Just &c." she responded.
After awhile It all leaked out. Most Of the
girls Of her day were married at 10 and II,
often at 10. All 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 Indies couldn't, positively couldn't
@Why notl'
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 low-necked, but short-sleeved, wooden
dresses, with nothing over their poor little
chests and arms but a thin muslin apron
Poor things" l said, chow 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.n said l. aThe general idea
seemed to be TO expose the neck and arms as
much as possible, under the most adverse cir
cunstances. Wasn't there good deal OF
rheumatism in the good old timer
II am afraid must say yes" replied my
old friend, doubtfully. GAN 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-
tons 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
muslins and cambrics until autumn OF
course, we had cold snaps, but we managed
to shiver through them in our airy garments
IL had gone and put ON a thick frock, as
my daughter does when the Thermometer
gets down to 90, would have been thought
crazy. Besides, they were all packed away.
"The one thing which they wore without
regard to its seasonableness was 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 straw or drawn silk
bonnet, which she wore the next winter with
out occasioning remark; and il it was winter
she bought velvet bonnet, perhaps, and
wore 1t bravely through the dog days. Dun
stable bonnets We're very fashionable when /
was a 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."
allow about the shoesl In these bad mod
ern times any young woman appearing on the
street in cloth CATERS would be thought
lunatic. Nothing is admissible except 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 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"
81 have seen some of those old gaitersn
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. would be afraid to go around the
corner In such shoes"
II am afraid we girls had a good many colds
and coughs" my old friend sighed.
II should think So" replied
"Then as to wraps" she continued, "it was
the height of every girls ambition to have
Canton Grape shawl. II girl had one she
wore it. no matter how cold IL might be.
was pretty cold, l remember, one January
day, with nothing around me but a silk shawl,
o"" Niehi iiiio ~. Ahch, Wo tOuiuIJ 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.p
swell, 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,
1t is true that we had open freplaces, which
afforded some ventilation, but as none of the
windows let down from the top of course we
couldn't have a current of fresh air through
our bedrooms We slept ON feather beds.
They lasted long time Sometimes they
were In use fifty years. When / walked up in
the morning usually felt dull and heavy.
In the summer we had mattresses put on top
OF the feather beds. There were very few
hair mattresses in those days, Most of them
were Of corn shucks, with an occasional corn
cob thrown in, New York Mail and Elk
press
A Curious Chinese Myth.