Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-04-07
Femlnine press reform.


on dress reform for her sex. She is a
very persuasive talker, very attractive
person and, take her for all in all, per-
haps the most taking woman lecturer
we have had in this region for long
while.
She presents common sense arguments
to her sex, and grows positively eloquent
on the chemilette, which is possibly an
improvement on Susan B. Anthony's
chemiloon. AS we understand this some
what recondite matter, both the chemi-
lette and chemiloon are sort OF COM
pound of the chemisette and old-fash-
ioned drawers. God forbid that we know,
or pretend to know, anything of these
mysterious garments, or those which it is
proposed to supplant them by, except
by hearsay, and in law hearsay
counts for nothing. The chemi-
lette may be an improvement on
the chemiloon, and even the chemiloon
may be an improvement on the chemi-
sette with the adjunctive or subjunctive
drawer or pantalette, but we yield TO no
one in devotion to the lovely creature
known as woman, whether she be en-
cased in one, or both, or all
or none-especially in the latter
contingency. Whether this divine be-
ing bifurcates her neither garments
separately or as an attachment of
the feecy and spotless raiment that
encloses her pearly bosom, We occupy
an attitude of unlimited alteration.
But when Mrs. DR.. Jenness Miller
thinks that her sisters will dress in
chemiloon or chemilette, in corsets Of
steel or of bone, or shall discard corsets
altogether, at her suggestion, we fear
lessly tell her that che don't know what
che is talking about. One wave Of the
wand of Worth, an odious man-milliner
of an improved Mantilini pattern, counts
| for more with a woman than would
thousand Mrs. Millers, accomplished,
| pleasing and earnest as the latter un-
doubtedly is in her public performances.
Mrs. Miller may with some success ar
rest the laws of gravity, and object to the
potency of the North Pole in determining
the course of the mariner, but she will
| never-no, never, arrest the course OF
her more fascinating sisters in their
laudable crusade to subdue and utterly
enthrall the rather uninteresting brute
known as man.
To achieve this triumph over what is
sometimes enormously called the lord of
creation woman would resort to any de-
vice of costume, of course drawing the
line at the decorous fg-leaf. Authentic
accounts say that the celebrated Joseph
Inc de Beauharnais, in the height of the
peculiar vagaries of the French Revolu-
ton, and before she became the wife
of the victorious Napoleon Bonaparte,
scarcely drew the line there. OF the
two most modern fashions in feminine
apparel, the bang and the hustle, each
have distinctively barbaric origin. Few
OF the charming creatures who carry
their hair down over their foreheads in
cunning little curls, know that the
fashion is borrowed from the maidens of
the tribe of Yuma Indians; and still
fewer, who add to the amplitude of the
posterior portions of their persons, know
that they are initiating trick of nature
with the women of the Kaffir tribe of
Africa.
But what matters it, as long as the ex-
quisite sex, VIII ich compliments and re-
deems mankind, think that the male
biped likes these things? From sticking
lizard in their hat to diamond in their
garter, or a new device in their clocked
stockings, their sole attention will be
directed to pleasing their congeners OF |
the opposite sex, in the future as in the |
past.
"'Tis true, tits pity, and pity tits tits |
true." Until Mrs. Miller can make man
enamored OF loose waists, fiat busts, |
chemiloons and chemilettes, her efforts |
are all thrown away. Until that milleni-
um OF the sexes shall arrive-and we un-
derstand that even the arrival of the sacer-
dotal millennium has been indefinitely
postponed-all her labors will be in vain.
Until the advent of that perhaps happy
day, lovely woman will continue to get
herself up in the usual stunning style,
quite to the extent Of putting steel in her
corsets, to say nothing of submitting to
that todious embracery itself. Susan B. An
thony, encased in chemiloon and chem.
ilette, ought to be surrounded by wor-
shipping cohorts of the male sex, but
she is not. Not even the ample and un-
corseted charms of Mrs. Cady Stanton |
can turn the tide of masculine favor
towards the sedator and wiser por-
ton of the female sex. And hence
these tears, shed by Mrs. Miller |
and other dress reformers, who are now
in advance of the time, and who will |
continue to be 30 till the crack of doom,
and even that eventful day may see the
chemilette vision of future which |
will then have no excuse for an exist
ence.
No s1 rnka IL. Al. n i