The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-01-02

Mrs. Robert Hoe, Jr., Miss Camilla MOSS,
Mrs. Alexander Mitchell, Mrs Samuel
Thomas, Mrs. John p Townseud and Mrs.
John S. White being the founders and in
corporators. The directors end governors
of the gymnasium are all women. the o1ly
representative of the other sex on the board
| being DR.. Watson L. Savage, who shares
with Dr. Mary 7. Bissell, the sister of the
president of Vassar, the position of con
sulting physician. Miss NJ. August Requa
the directress.of the gymnasium, is the pref
test of the athletes in the divided skirt cos
tune.
| DIR. Bissell, who has a gymnasium o.
her own in in which women practice, was
talking of physical training some few days
| ago.
''What do they all come for9" I asked
her.
"For fun and for athletic development,
| was the replv "Of course, too, some have
special deficiencies or defects which they
want to remedy. Women are just finding on
that some of the worst cases of lack of pro
portion and symmetry can be improved by
systematic physical culture Women are
turning to the gymnasium instead of to the
| powder box for their compilations. They
are trying dumb bells, Indian clubs, the
trapeze and the bath to round their contours
and give grace and freedom of movement
One woman may come because she has 6
a bent back and winged shoulder blades,
| the result of the too early use of corsets
STOPPING over a school desk. Another
woman may come to fill out a fiat chest
and others to round scrawny Threats or pine
stem arms or fiat waists. They all work
with a will, work, work, work, and the
quick steady pumping of the blood strength
ems faced tissue, puts life into muscles
almost atrophied from disuse and makes
| handsome healthy women, instead of pale
languid invalids.n
But are there no accidents in the gym
nasium; is it safe for girls1"
II never knew of an accident in wom-
ems gymnasium. There are accidents in
the kitchen and on the sidewalk. I don't
know why there should not he in the gym
nasium, but l never heard Of one. And it
would be hard to over-estimate the benefit.
Women are less subject to acute diseases
than men. Their disorders are largely func-
tional, and anything which improves the
circulation and assists the digestion LAYS the
broadest basis for rich vital health and per-
ennial youth"
Akin TO the gymnasiup,, though it EN-
ploys no apparatus, is the system of physi-
caliculture of which Miss Mabel Jenness, a
pretty sister of the pretty dress reformer,
Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller, is making sue
cess. Miss Jenness' disciples do not wear the
| divided skirt-which | neglected to say j.
the uniform of DR.. BisSell's gymnasts as
well as of the Ladies' Attletic Association
| they wear Greek gowns. Miss Jenness her
self is tall Greek maiden in a white robe
embroidered with gold. Her long draperies
| cling about a 1.-THE figure girdled and
clasped in the graceful antique fashion.
She has made an elaborate study of all the
muscles. with regard to the special move
ments required to develop different parts Of
the body and the result is what she calls a
gesture drill" which is really a series of
simple exercises in part modified from the
Delsarte, by the intelligent practice
of which a woman may learn to stand
and sit properly and may cultivate
| bodily strength and graceful and pleasing
proportions.
What long list it would make if one but
told over half the things that women are
| doing under the stimulus of this passion for
physical Improvement. 1t was only yes
terday that two girls in Fifth avenue
stage amused the passengers by pulling out
little ivory tablets edged with silver and
audibly comparing notes in the gravest
fashion as to chest expansion and capacity
and the number of inches each had gained
by systematic practice since returning from
the summer holidays.
81 make it a rule to expand my lungs as
fully as possible once in every block, said
one of them
81 used to-" said the other; "but one day
Cousin Dick, who was with me, asked if
were heaving deadly signs over some ire
pressible sorrow"
Nearly all the girls who exercise regularly
keep their own record of weight and size,
and record a gain of quarter of an inch in
arm glrth amid the envious Fluctuations of
their neighbors.
The fat women go through the mos
comical evolutions. One woman in her
efforts to reduce the amount of her round
loneliness is trying the climbing cure She
makes the stairways of the elevated road
her Alps and goes I'D and down conscien-
tiously 100 times each day. She says she is
strengthening her heart muscles and sub
DUNG her plump aud pleasing person.
But the gymnasium hour is over and the
athletic girls are scurrying to their dressing
rooms.
How hate to put on long skirts again"
says one Of them as they scamper by.
"Yes, if one could only be as free as this
all the time"
"Well, and why can't we, you and Il'
They look at each other, the horror of a
short-skirted promenade down Broadway
making mischief in their eyes. Then they
walk demurely away. And still the Ques-
tion is unanswered, why.
81 hurt my hands on the ropes" says an
other They will blister, Pm afraid"
You'll get used to it, a habitue assures
the novice I've got so that don't mind
it at ALL
And who are these demure damsels in
trim little coats, with Parma violets pinned
on their muffs and great bags of Hading
wells tied over their big ostrich plumed hats
and under their little chins! Truly the
gymnasium girls are transformed. You'd
never sus pect them now of the trapeze. We
are going to have race of women as strong,
as beautiful as the goddessss of old by-and-
by. ELIZA PUTNAM HEAToN.