St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-04-26
One of Col. Higginson's Stories.

Col. Higginson told good joke on
himself in one of his lectures in which
he was drawing contrast between the
present opinion with. reference to the
intellectual endowment and abilities of
women, and that which prevailed thir-
ty and forty years ago. He said,
"When I graduated from Harvard my
standing in my class had been good
and felt that knew great deal, and
was in fact so conscious of my wisdom
and knowledge, | aired it on all occa-
sions. About that time was spending
few days with my father at the beau
tiful home of one of his friends, gen
tleman who had spent some time
abroad and had brought home a good
many art treasures. His daughter had
recently graduated from some ladies'
seminary, and it was said she was eX-
tremely we'll educated for a girl. But
had no exalted opinion of her intelli-
gence, and thought she carried herself
with proper dignified humility before
my father, and before me, as recent
Harvard graduate. AS we stood near
a section of frieze which her father
had brought from Athens, [ thought L
would be kind and condescending and,
if possible, give her little informa-
ton about Greek art. So made sew
eral statements with reference to it,
and was astOnished to notice from her
responses that | was only stating what
she knew, when, finally, [ remarked,
pointing to the horses with extremely
short legs, in the frieze, 1t is strange
that the Athenians, who so excelled in
sculpture, should have made such mis-
arah Ia xynrlx with thair hnrsaSf Inst
see what uncOuth looking animalsp
But replied the young lady, these
are doubtless true to nature, for you
know all the Greek horses came from
Thessaly, and the particular character
short legsp 81 need hardly say" add
for knot-hole. From that time my
of women has not troubled me, but
from year to year Ihave been more and
more impressed with it,
American Women Improving in Ply
sique.
Edward Atkinson recently demon
strated by the measurements of whole
through a series of years, that the av-
erage American man instead of deteri-
Grating is increasing in size. A similar
investigation among the dressmakers
reveals the fact that the feminine waist
is also increasing in girth. "Women
are certainly larger than they used to
be-" said a dressmaker recently to
Philadelphia reporter. "What makes
4, II tI,a
order books, for one thing, kept by
mother and myself for almost 40 years.
Every dressmaker has a record of the
never destroyed any of ours, and the
older books are entertaining memoran
da. See this little black covered book
is for 1859. Open it anywhere You
please. There you have it, all the
proof you wanted. Miss -, waist
measure, Is inches Mrs. - 90 inch
es and the bust measures and skirt
lengths are in proportion. Turn the
leaves, you will find IL inches, IS inch
es, 49, inches, 10 inches, repeated con
tinually. Sometimes you come across
one as low as Is inches. | think | can
remember making dresses where the
waist was only Is inches. Nearly all
the entries are for slender women, mar
rover chested than L cut for now and
not so tall. How big are girls now p
Philadelphia girls of 30 or % years old
will average waists of % inches at
least. If they are five feet seven or
eight inches tall they will have 25 or
26-inch waists. There are plenty of
women who are not ashamed of waists
considerably larger than that, if they
are we'll formed in proportion. [ should
say that women were an inch or two
taller and three or four inches larger
round than their mothers were. Health
Ter p Oh, that goes without saying"