Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-20
THE TRAILING SKIRT.
No Concession to the Reform Ideas In
the Latest Fashions.
BOARDING RAPID TRANSIT CARS
Arguments In Favor Of the Much-Anused
but Necessary Corset.
FACTS ABOUT THE GREEK COSTUME

The dress reformers do not appear to be
making much headway in the matter OF con-
structing suitable dress for women, and
yet the necessity becomes every day more
apparent There has been more bowling
over the trouble of skirts since the intro
duction of the cable and electric cars than
ever before. The cars are high, having two
steps; they jerk constantly, throwing peo-
pie off their feet, and no conductor waits
until woman is seated. This calls for
quick movement, but when a woman car
ries a baby, basket, an umbrella OF
package, she has clambering time to catch
the rail with the impediment of long skirts.
1t looks so easy for 8 man to catch car
that women are constantly envying them
their freedom of movement.
Long skirts in the house are all very well,
eff people prefer to be hampered with them
rather than be out of the fashion. But even
then women who do housework have much
of discomfort, additional work, and wear
and tear of temper especially in carrying
things up and down stairs. And that there
is much of this carving in the homes OF
working women requires no showing. The
walk Since gas is getting to be out OF
reach, coal forms another load to be carried
up as fuel, and down as ashes, with skirts to
be clutched.
ONE METHOD OF RELIEF.
In old times and in country districts the
stalwart danes overcame this aggrayating
impediment by having short petticoats and
then pinning up their skirts. The country
woman still does this when she milks, or
works in her garden, from force ofnecessity.
In this style of rig the mother OF George
Washington received Lafayette. But what
the girls call their "Gym dress" would be
vastly more convenient and pretty. The
dress prescribed for this physical culture is
neat, modest and becoming. 1t is adapted
for freedom of movement, health, and for
doing housework most easily, and, for that
matter, any other work in which women are
engaged. In style it would be much mone
suitable for street wear than any other. To
climb on the present kind of car with any
thing to carry and skirts to manage is feat
for a woman, and a mighty awkward feat at
that-especially when in the endeavor to
clutch a strap they pitch forward and run
the risk of an unpleasant fall, or bounce
down upon man.
But the present advocates Of dress re-
and to teach the beauty and utility of short
gowns as means of comfort, but they in
tend to GO back to the Greek costume of
old. which is pretty and graceful in pic
ture, but it appears to be little better than
that of to-day, since the skirts were long and
quite as sheath-like as are those OF the
present.
HOW PENELOPE IS DRESSED
In the picture of Penelope she is sttired
in such decollette style as would shock
the saintliest of Chautauquans and horrlty
Bradley and his friends at Ocean Grove into
fit. Penelope has had her praises sounded
in classic songs and stories as the model
matron of the Greeks, not only for her
beauty, but her virtues and industry. The
Greek dress was meant for life of seclus-
ion, such a sort Of loose wrapper or tea
gown as women generally wear around
home in the mornings to-day.
Cornelia, the famous Roman matron who
represented all that was heroic and noble, is
shown in her picture in loose, shapeless
gown with the tail of it hung over her arm,
so it must have had a long train. No, the
old Grecian and Roman styles will not suit
the women Of the present who spend their
lives in so much going about the streets and
in public work.
The Eastern women of the harems and
zenanas are as dreadfully shocked bv the
pictures of Europeans going about without
having their heads wrapped in wells, which
entirely conceal their faces, as are Ameri-
cans over their customs No Persian or
Arab woman would be considered well
behaved or respectable if she appeared in
public without having her face swaddled
in this covering, and yet we are told
she e not at all particular as to her feet.
Feet are all alike they claim-it is the face
that gives positive identity, and she would
lose caste if she should 60 around in the
bonnets and hats of the Europeans
IDEAS BRED BY CUSTOM.