The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-04-27
ABOUT DRESS AND DIET.
Mrs. Jenness Miller illustrates the
Former and Talks Of the
Latter. .
How to Prepare the Body for
Dressing and How to
Dress,
Unnatural Compression Of Belts and Corset
steels-Petticoats Relic of Bar
barism-The Bifurcated Skirt

Hartman Hall was crowded yesterday
with women, when q graceful, pretty wom-
an, in an old pink and dull green gown,
glided swiftly across the stage and greeted
her audience, says the New York Sun.
Every woman noted tho picturesque dress
with its train of pink faille and front OF
pompadour brocade, draped diagonally
with green gauze, of its fanciful sleeves
and high Medici collar. The two or three
men IN the room made mental memoranda
of the woman who wore the gown-the
splendidly poised head, the exquisite out
lines of the full throat, the perfectly de-
veloped, 1.-the, vigorous figure: the strong,
free grace of motion and gesture. With an
apology for delay in her appearance, Mrs.
Jenness Miller said, in pleasant, familiar
ly conversational tone:
II did think ladies cared Tor something
besides dress, and I had purposed to
talk to you this morning ON different
theme, but SO many requests have been sent
to me to lecture on the old subject that my
desire to branch off on another subject
must be in measure lnsatisfied. How
ever, mean to talk to you little about
how to prepare the body for dressing be-
fore tell you how to dress we'll. Oliver
Wendell Holmes says that in order to make
people what they should be we must begin
two hundred years before they are born.
Now, while to a certain extent Iagree with
him, still hold that it rests with us to
make the Dist of ourselves according to the
latest artistic, scientific and physiological
discoveries. The morality of future gener-.
ations depends upon the physical develop
ment OF the women of this generation
think l have always been natural
reformer, and have listened to lectures
upon lectures wherein men were blamed for
the degeneracy of the race and women were
exalted into something better than saints.
l am going to take the other side of the
question, and tell how We women fail, for
we do fail as mothers, as wives, as home
makers. We need better brains, better
bodies, better, stronger moral natures and
power. Now, dress forms an important
factor in bringing about the desired change
to profoundly Il use the word advisedly)
men are responsible for half the ills Of
their posterity, but for only half. Women
bear an equal responsibility, and unless we
bring each muscle into symmetrical, har-
monious relation by proper exercise, proper
bathing, and then dress in such manner
possibilities, we shall deteriorate Just as
dress coInpels us, and the result will be un-
happy homes, dissatisfied husbands and
children born with debilitated bodies and
diseased minds.
my main point of attack against the
prevailing style of dress is the unnatural
compression of belts and corset steels at the
waist line, where lie the great nerve centres
| and the great important breathing muscle
People laugh at the old saying that per-
son died for want of breath, but thousands
of WOMEN die every year because they never
breathe right.
"Another point make is tie absurditv
Of dressing yourself up in petticoats, which
I call relics of barbarism. I haven't pet
ticoat in the world, but I remember the
days Of my bondage, when, like you, I
triPped oyer my dress going up stairs, and
petticoat beneath it; when, like you, I have
stood on corner on windy days, and had
my petticoat wind round and round nv
legs until coulnn't stir; when, like you,
on rainy days. I have gathered up my
dress behind, only to have that petticoat
rain. When my divided skirt winds
it winds round only one leg at a time, and
thus leaves me always one free leg to de-
pend upon. It can't trip me up going up
stairs or convert itself into broom to
sweep up all the refuse going down stairs.
vailing fashion of the day, but adapt that
fashion and drape it ON gown form that
neither exerts undue pressure at any point
or makes its weight felt in one place more
than another. Let the weight be evenly
distributed and plenty of room at the waist
line.
sit sounds like heresy to talk to an intel
ligent New York audience about bathing,
but I venture to say You are, many of you,
never clean. Certainly the woman who
takes her sponge bath every morning-the
worst kind of bath by the way-is never
| really clean. There is a deposit on the akin
that must be taken off with rough towel,
| with an occasional Turkish bath or some
kind of exercise that will cause profuse per-
spiration, and after it vigorous massage
rubbing that shall remove the scurf skin.
$50 many fat women write and ask me
place wouldn't be fat. would reduce,
not by starving, for never knew woman
who starved of fifteen pounds that she did
not take on thirty, but by dieting. There
is no royal road to reduction. Dry hot
baths, not Russian baths, and q vigorous
flesh shall fairly be squeezed dry, proper
exercise and the use of plain, wholesome,
nourishing food and no water. It is the
water that you want to get rid of. After
the bath oil and salt should he rubbed into
the skin. A thin person takes exactly the
opposite treatment. The Russian bath first,
the rubbing with nourishing oil. like cocoa
nut oil, especially on the lungs. Some fat
women suffer from mal-assimilation Of
food, and some from laziness. You must
study into your condition, into the chemi-
cal properties of different foods and their
effect upon your bodies.
Scientific hygienic exercise must do the
rest. Not simply walking. l don't think
much of walking as an exercise, but exer-
cises that develop abdominal strength for
that is where women are weakest. So many
forlorn women come to my with their hands
on their prominent abdomen and say: what
would you do with thatI' and my answer
always is would take off my corsets, loosen
, my dress at the waist line, raise my chest,
and put that where it belongs.
TT is by studying ourselves, learning to
control not only our appetites, but our phys
ical being. muscular system, in every way
resisting our tendencies toward too much
flesh, too much leanness, that we help to
make the world what we desire it, instead
of sitting round and wondering why the
world doesn't grow better. 1t is by this that
we attain and exercise that certain con-
trolling something that helps us hold men,
as it were, in the hollow of our hand, sub
ject to our bidding; that grand, splendid
something which the world recognizes as
womanhood, that makes us not only moth
ers, but goddesses in the home, and gives
us grace to bring into the world sons with
of old.''
All this and great deal more Mrs. Mil
Ter said: but the best of all, 90 the ladies
insist, was when she began showing them
her gowns which, as she said, she could put
on and off while her husband was changing
his collar and tie. One of her changes
from simple house gown to an elaborate
evening affair with mo- sleeves and q half