Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-02
WON'T KNOW HIS GRANDMOTHER
FROM ANY OTHER TELLER


A lady friend writes us that from a
conversation which she overheard be-
tween several advocates of the dress
reform movement, she is impressed
that ''coupde etat' is contemplated and
that the JenneSs- Miller unmentionableS
The plan is to continue the advocacy of
these monstrous baggy affairs until
their universal adoption is secured.
This accomplished and the American
women generally finding themselves in
breeches, de facto. proclamation is to
thing is done, the victory won; therefore
to discard all skirts and stand forth a re-
deemed and enfranchised sex. AS no
man can, tell how far this thing may
have gone already, tell how many women
are even now roaming around in these
awful contrivances, the denouement may
come at any moment. We tremble
as we contemplate the chances. There
will be only one happy man left in this
town, he who sits in darkness on the cor
ner grinding his organ. He is blind and
it will be ali the same to him, Blindness
will be sought after as blessing, and
circuses and ballet entertainments will
fall into inocuous desuetude. Gender
will only be determined by the presence
or absence of beard, and that distinction
will only survive for the shortest time,
under the influence of the law Of natural
= E tI,Nf
Short hair will be the rage and dealers in
coiffeurs will have to turn tailors. The
demand for tailors will be universal.
There is one sweet consolation, however,
about the whole matter. The milliners,
the bane Of every civilized mans life,
will all have to so our of business, thank
goodness. No doubt they will all go to
manufacturing breeches also. The
trousers trade will, in short, flourish next
to that of politics.
Oh, yes; politics, of course. But for
politics there would have been none of
this painting after pants which is threat
ening to revolutionize everything terres-
tial and celestial-even our very ideas Of
the inhabitants of heaven. Think of an
angel, one of those beatific creatures,
stripped of wings and flowing robes,
tricked out in a pair of Miss Fosters
Annie-JennesS pantaloons and thus
cieaving the ambient environments of
the celestial abode: What figure she
would cut. How woman, from whom
we get all our beautiful ideals of morn
ing star forms and angelic costumes, can
expect to maintain the seraphic standard
slashing around the polls in pair of
those horrible bifurcations, is what gets
us, wings or no wings. And that's the
thought which makes us feel SO strangely
when we come to say our little evening
prayer of Now l lay me, ETC." What
need a fellow particularly care for
his chances of reaching cline
where, instead of ETHEREAL forms of
white-robed delights floating gracefully
about, he would be rushed into a place
whose sleety atmosphere looked as if it
were filed with tapping clothes lines,
strung full Of abnormal, unartistic
caricatures Of his fathers neither gar
ments. The contemplation of the posi-
bility effaces all the beautiful things
taught us by our grandmothers and de-
presses every successive eternal long
ing.
We suspect that the test of the ripe
ness Of the scheme and the advent Of
the glorious epoch when we shall not
know our grandmother from any other
ell l.. {La oe,
who will register and vote at the next
election. No woman without a
pair of these will demand her
rights and no one boasting a pair
dare be denied the exalted privilege of
taking hand in setting things up. At
least our dear correspondent SO concludes.
But as she is sticking to home, husband
and children, favoring neither the dress
reform or the reformed ballot, and de-
string still to cling to her nice seal skin,
her pretty laces and dainty dimity, she
may, in the estimation of the reform
apostles lack character and be other
wise deficient in brains, of course. AS
for ourself we prefer heart to brains
Reformers can't be expected to under
stand what that means; and. not under
standing that they can't possibly under
stand us, which. nevertheless, accounts
for the interest of the dear woman, who
warns us of the danger ahead.
The remark that 1.-The Kansas town
that tells the fewest lies about itself Will
succeed best was made by a man who
had visited a number and based the
assertion on what he saw in Wichita.
There is just one expression from all
who visit this city. and that is the queen
of Sheba's response on her return from
Jerusalem. The half that is told of
Wichita sounds too extravagant for be-
lief by persons who have never seen a
real live, progressive city; hence The
CALCULATIONS of astonishment from all
such on first visiting this city.
1t is asserted that the reason the Dem |
ocrats changed the time of holding their |
national convention from July 3. the date !
first fixed by the committee, to June |