Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-22
BELLIES WITH MUSCLE.
Bessie Bramble Talks of the Present
Rage for Athletic Sports.
LADIES WHO HUNT, ROW AND SAIL.
American Women Emulating Their Robust
English Sisters.
DRESS REFORM A NATURAL SEQUENCE
WRITTEN FOR THE DrspAroH.

or rather to say delicacy of Organization
with which American women have so long
been credited, will speedily disappear. Il
the rowing, and hunting, and baseballing,
and walking, and bicycling, and yachting
60 on it will not be long before the women
of this country will become as hearty and
robust as the English women and German
fraus with whom they have so long been
held in sorry contrast, as poor, frail creatures
who grow wrinkled and decrepit at 80, al
which age-according to French writers,
the century-the whole of their personal
charms disappear.
This may have been true then, but who
seeing the girls of to day coming home from
the lakes, the mountains, the seashore and
the rural regions-would ever think of set
ting them down as the fair and Fragile be-
ings so admired and loved by former gener-
atlons. For, strange to say, it used to be
fashionable for girls to be frail and ethereal.
1t was once held to be the nice and proper
thing fer them to swoon on all occasions.
To go off in dead faint gracefully was part
of pretty girls business, and even now
Laura Jean Libbey and other writers of
the romantic school still keep up the dead
swoon" for the thrilling cimaxes of the
startling scenes in which their high-strung
heroines play leading paris.
1t is still somewhat fashionable to have a
waist in opposition to he dictums of both
nature and art, but with the g.owth of taste
for physical culture and athletic sports this
attenuated ideal must in cour,s of time die
out The hour-glass waist, the contracted
chest and the weak back cannot be MAIN
! tanned in face of the invigoration and de-
velopment that come OF fresh air exercise,
good appetite and outdoor sports.
COMFORT FOR THE BRETHREN.
Then, as it follows, girls cannot play
tennis, or baseball, or row boat, or sail a
yacht successfully in stiff, close-ftting cor
SETS therefore the flannel blouse has had to
be evolved. and has been found SO comfort
table that many have been induced to leave
off the corset permanently. This fact should
delight the brethren, who are everlastingly
harping about the injuriousness of that
article of feminine wear, and who
look upon the world as going down
to swift destruction because of it.
To hear some of them talk upon the subject
it might be supposed that the women of the
present were deliberately bent on lacing
themselves to death, when the fact is that
never since fashion invented the corset has
there been less OF it. The women of Queen
Elizabeth's day were much more strongly
encased and tightly laced in bones and
buckram than those of to-day, and yet the
most of them lived and loved and had a good
time generally as then esteemed, while the
pictures ofsthe grandmothers that have
come down to US plainly show that they
wore sitter "stays" and laced more rigidly
than DO their descendants. The brethren.
therefore, can take comfort in the act that
the sisters are growing wiser, are improving
upon the manners of the past, and that they
are rising "on stepping stones to higher
things"
Among the women of the British nobility
the latest outdoor amusement is to command
and sail yacht just as do their husbands
and brothers, and the testimony goes to
show that they do it wonderfully well, and
that they do not hesitate to run races with
the best of them. AS accounts go, the
ladies indulging in this amusement own
their own yachts, steer them themselves,
and, with one hired hand to assist, sail
them in all sorts of weather. In recent
race all of the boats were steered by ladies.
Among them, as stated, was Mrs. Schenley,
who owns and sails yacht entitled "The
Thief" This can hardly be the Pittsburg |
Mrs. Schenley. By this time she must be |
too much of dignified dowager to be sail |
ing yacht in race, and to be attired IN a |
sailor jacket, with short skirts and trousers,
and sailor hat covering a closely |
"shingled" head.
THE FASHION JUGGERNAUT.
Manifestly long skirts, tight waists and
the regulation fashionable rig of trains and
must seem doubly irksome and !
trying after the freedom of the short skirt
and trousers of the yachting costumes, but,
as pictured, these last are vastly more
modest than the bathing suits or full dress.
so who knows but that this latest fad of
fashionable women will not lead to the
adoption of dress combining more freedom
and comfort. Mrs. Jenness Miller NAV
talk on, and demonstrate till she is gray
the beauties and advantages of her esthetic-
dress, but until her ideas are branded as
the fashion" by the nobility they will
have little or no effect on the majority. II
she could persuade the Princess of Wales,
Or Sara Bernhardt to dress according to her
standards the world would doubtless
all into it Immediately, but lacking
eading authority an attempt at dress
'eorm is as hopeless and useless
Is DR.. Mary Walker or Bloomerism to
convert the multitude. Fashion is tyran-
lical master of both men and women. If
ashton should decree that men should 90
back to the silk and velvet and frills of the
eighteenth century, they would go. In |
'bedience to her mandate men would wear
he sky-blue coats of Hogarth, the damson-
blum OF Goldsmith, the Vandyke lace col
ars and plumes of Charles I, the petticoat
,reeches and shoulder cloaks of Charles II,
he red handkerchiefs of the Sans Culotte
Il France, or the high collars and strapped
,antaloons of later period as shown in old
pictures. AT present women are in the
Marie Antoinette, Josephine and Recamer
tyles of the French Revolution period, and
he lack of ideas in Worth and Redfern
nd the rest of the authorities on this su-
reme matter of fashion is shown by the
act that to secure changes, variety and :
oveIty they go back to old pictures, and
evive old styles, rather than tax their
rains to adapt themselves to the age and its
ecessities.
HOW FASHIONS ARE STARTED.
Queen Victoria has big feet and is pigeon
bed. These defects are concealed by long
resses. By her wearing them they were I
imposed upon every woman in Christen- /
ON. The Princess OF Wales has long,
gly neck with, as is said, an unsightly
saI LnereupOu. 1nls, lor ner, means
Ugh, close collar, and, as follows, the FASH i
On condemns every woman to be swathed !
p to her ears, comfortable or uncomfort- {
BILE, and as one sheep follows another over {
ne fence, so every woman follows the style
1t by Alexandra. What fools women are, |
} be sure. But what better are men? Even G
ne statesman of Hominy Hill surrendered
} the fashion of dress coat after holding I
ut tor years against it. o
New customs, though they be never so ridic- c
ulOus n