The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-06
THE TRAGEDY OF DRESS.
Fashion Numbers as Many Men as lis
Victims as Women.

Feasting-Clerks on Limited Sala-
ries Dying From Dress-A Tragedy
in Five Acts-The Evils of Inordi-
nate Fashion Pointed Out.
Brooklyn. Aug. 5.-Rev. DR. Talmage,
who is now in Melbourne. Australia on
his round-the-world tour. has chosen as
the subject Of his sermon for to-day
through the press: The Tragedy of
Dress" the text selected being Peters,
iii, 8, :
Whose adjoining let il not be that out
ward adjoining of plating the hair, ana
the wearing Of gold, or Of putting on of
apparel: but let it be the hidden man of
the heart"
That we should all be clad, is proved by
the opening of the first wardrobe in Par
adise, with its apparel of dark green.
That we should all, as far as our means
allow US, be beautifully and gracefully
appareled, is proved by the fact that God
never made a wave but he gilded IL with
golden sunbeams, or a tree but he gar
landed it with blossoms, or a sky but he
studded it with stars, or allowed even the
smoke of a furnace to ascend but he col
umned and turreted and domed and
scrolled il into outlines Of indescribab bic
gracefulness. When 1 see the apple or
chards of the spring and the pageantry of
the autumnal forests, l come to the con-
clusion that if nature ever does join the
church, while she may be d Quaker in
the silence of her worship, shs
never will be a Quaker in the style
of her dress. Why the notches of
a fern leaf, or the stamen of a water lily2
Why, when the day departs, does it let
the folding doors of heaven stay open so,
long, when il might go in so quicklyi One
summer morning / saw an army of a
million spears, each one adorned with
diamond of the first water-I mean the
grass with the dew on it. When the
prodigal came home his father not only
put coat on his back, but iewelry on his
hand. Christ wore a beard. Paul the
bachelor apostle, not afflicted with any
sentimentality, admired the arrangement
of a woman's hair when he said, in his
epistle, "if q woman have long hair il is
a glory unto her" There will be a fashion
in heaven as on earth, but it will be diff
ferent kind of fashion. 1t will decide the
color Of the dress; and the population of
that country, by a beautiful law, will wear
white. say these things as a background
to my sermon, TO show you that / have
no prim, precise prudish, or cast-iron
theories on the subject of human apparel.
throne in this world and at the sound Of
the timbrels we are all expected to fall
down and worship The old and new
testament of her bible are the fashion
plates. Her affairs smoke with the sacri-
tice of the bodies, minds and souls of ten
thousand victims. In her temple four
people stand in the Organ-loft, and from
them there comes down cold drizzle Of
music, freezing on the ears of her wor-
h Cf 70
become rival of the Lord Of heaven and
earth, and it is high time that we unlim-
bered our batteries against this idolatry
When ! come to count the victims of
fashion l find as many masculine as femi-
nine Men make an easy TRADE against
women, as though she were the chief
worshipper at this idolatrous shrine, and
no doubt some men in the more conspicu-
Gus part of the pew have already cast
glances at the more retired part of the
pew, their look prophecy Of a generous
distribution. My sermon shall be as ap-
propriate for one end of the pew as for
the other.
Men are as much the idolators of fash
ion as women, but they sacrifice on diff
ferent part of the altar With men the
fashion goes to cigars and club-rooms and
yachting parties and wine suppers In
the United States the men chew up and
smoke one hundred millions of dollars
worth of tobacco every year. That is
their fashion. In London, not long ago, a
man died who started in life with seven
hundred and fifty Thousand dollars, but
he ate 1t all up in glutonies, sending his
agents TO all parts of the earth for some
rare delicacy of the palate, sometimes one
plate Of food costing him three or four
hundred dollars. He ate up his whole
fortune and had only one guinea left;
with that ne bought woodcock, and had
1t dressed in the very best style, ate it,
gave two hours for digestion, then
walked out on Westminster bridge and
threw himself into the Thames, and died.
doing on large scale what you and
nave often seen done on
small scale. But men do not alb
stain from millinery and elaboration of
skirt through any superiority of humility,
1t IS only because SUCH appendages would
be blockade to business What would
sashes and trains three and a half yards
long do in stock marketl And yet men
are the disciples of fashion lust as much
as women. Some of them wear boots so
tight they can hardly walk in the paths
OF righteousness. And there are men
who buy expensive suits of clothes and
never pay for them, and who go through
the street in great stripes of color like
animated checker-boards. ! say these
things because / want to show you that 1
am impartial in my discourse, and tnat
both sexes, in the language of the surro-
gates office, shall share and share
alike AS God may help me, I shall
show you what are the destroying and
deathful Influences of inOrlinate fashion
The first baleful influence / notice is in
fraud, illimitable and CHASTITY. Do Won
know that Arnold of the revolution pro
posed 10 sell his country in order to get
money TO support his wife's wardrobe2 I
declare here before God and this people
that the effort TO keep up expensive
establishments in this country is sending
more business men to temporal perdition
than all other cases combined. What was
1t that sent Gilman to the peniteutiarv
and Philadelphia Morton 10 the watering
of stocks, and the life insurance presi-
dents to periured statements about
their assets. and has completely
upset our American finances What
was II that overthrow the United States
secretary at Washington, the crash of
whose fall shook the continentl But WHY
should ] 20 TO these famous defaultinps Ia
show what men will do in order TO keen
up great home style and expensive ward
robe, when you and know scores of men
who are put 10 their wits end. and are
dashed from January to Decembe in the
Our politicians may theorize
until the expiration of their terms Of Of
nee as to the best way of improving our
monetary condition in this country; il
will be Of no use, and things will be no
better until we learn to put on our heads
and backs, and feet, and hands no more