The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-10-25
oLD-TIMRD ECONOMIES.
The Frugal Spirit That Existed a
Hundred Years or SO Ago.

Those were times when fashions had
not yet learned to change with such
chameleon-Iike speed, says Agnes Rep
pier in the October atlantic, and people
did occasionally wear their old clothes
with an unblushing etfrontery that
would b. well-nigh disgreceful to-day.
Silks and satins, laces and bellows
were all of the costliest description, and
their owners were cbary of discarding
them, or even lightly exposing them to
ruin. Emile Souvestre's languid lady,
somewhat after the manner of the
ciiiOus Indifference to the fate of her
velvet mantle in snowstorm, could
hardly have existed a few hundred wears
sgo. We have III Pepy's diary &
NEST amusing record ot;hls disgust at
being over persuaded by his wife to
wear his best suit on a certain threat
eDing May day, and how of course it
rained ard all their pleasure was
sp lied. The guilty Eve was quite as
unfortunate as her husband, for she,
too, had gone forth extraordinary
fine in her Powered tabby gown, ="
which we are greatly relieved to learn
little later was two years old, but
smartly renovated with brand new
lacing. Only fancy being SO careful of
q two-year old gown as TO begruIge it
TO the sight of court and commoners
on Msy day
The same frugal spirit extended down
to the last century and was of infinite
value to the seli-respecIing poor. Ar
tisans had not yet found it imperative
to dress their wives and children in
imitation finery, and farmers were even
ess awake TO the exigencles of fl shion-
able attire. We read of rural couples
Lllcidly wearing their wedding clothes
into their advanced old age, and we are
lost IN hopeless speculation as to how
they accommodated their spreading
proportions to the coats ana
gowns which presumsb bly, had
fitted the comparative Slime of
their youth. With what patient in
genuity did the good danes of Miss
Mitford's village, aided occasionally by
an itinerant tailoress, turn ard return
their husbands cast off clothing until
from seeming ruin they had evolved
sound garments for tAei. growing BOYS
duu Will PLUG ulu Iu6
strutting youngsters exhibit on the vii
lage street these baggy specimens of
their u others skill. Among the innu-
merable anecdotes told of George Ill, it
is said that stroliiDg once with Queen
Charlotte in the woods of Windsor he
met a little 1ed-cheeked, white-h hard
lad, who proved on examination to be
the son of one of his majesty's beef
eaters. The gracious king, always
well pleased with children, patted the
boys faxen head and bade him kneel
and kiss the queens hand, but this the
sturdy young BriDton declined fatty
to do; not, be it said, from any
desire to emulate the exam ples of
Penn and Franklin by illustrating on
a minor scale the heroic principles of
democracy, but solely and entirely that
he might not spoil his new breeches by
contact with the grass. So thrifty a
monarch, says Thackeray. should have
Rugged on the spot child after his
own heart; and even if the royal favor
failed to manifest itself in precisely this
fashion l make no doubt that the beef
eaters wife, who had stitched those
little breeches with motherly solicitude,
found ample comfort in such a judici
Gus son,