The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-08-28
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
These Balloon Sleeves Strike Him as an
UngainIy Fashion.
-dtlant0 Constitution.

Indifferent to the tyrrany of fashion.
If they don't follow it near they do
afar off. Woman seem to be built
that way and I reckon she can't help
it. The men have been fussing about
it for ages, but it don't do any good.
Some say the devil is at the bottom of
it, and that fashion is woman s beset-
ting sin and is the devil S trap that he
sets to catch them, but I don believe
it. I've noticed my female folks
making these big sleeves, and | know
they have had no bad effect on them.
They go to church all the same, and
to the missionary meeting, and the
Sunday School and sing in the choir,
and are just as kind and industrious
at home as they ever were. Now the
big sleeves were really right pretty and
becoming until they swclled them out
Of all reason, and now they are horrid.
For about year the style Of woman's
dress has been pretticr than for many
years before. 1t fit her person and
showed the grace of her form and
movement, but this balloon sleeve
business is deforming her some. |
don't think it will last long. But |
will compromise on almost any fash
ion except hoop skirts. I never was
reconciled to them and never will be.
I remember when they came into fash
ion, and they we're quite decent and
we'll behaved, but in the course Of
time they got bigger and more wider
and spreadier until man dident have
much showing on a sidewalk or the
street cars, and woman with full
grown tilter on couldent get into a
church pew with any grace. She
couldent lean up against the counte,
in store, but had to stand off foot
or so to keep the tilter from rising
from a horizontal to a perpendicular.
That was away back before the war
when George D. Prentice was running
the Louisville Journal, and he wrote
such sarcastic poem about chem that
they got ashamed and reduced their
circumference. But they came back
again few years ago, though not to
such an extravagant extent. | was a
young man when they first came and
the rage was so infectious and univer-
sal that poor folks who couldent buy
them got the boys to make them Of
white oak splits like they. made the
cotton baskets. But they were right
cool in summer time, I recon. They
looked very cool when there was
breeze.
This balloon sleeve is no new thing,
though I don't think they were ever
quite so large as they are now. The
prophet Ezekiel took dislike to them
about 1000 years ago, for he says,
"Wo to the women who sew pillows
to their armholes. They we're stuff
ed, reckon. But Isaiah made a
clear sweep of all kinds of fashions
that prevailed among those Hebrew
women. He proclaimed curse upon
"the tinkling ornaments about their
feet and their cauls and round-tires
like the moon,' and the chains and
bracelets and mufflers and bonnets
and head bands and tablets and ear
rings and changeable suits of apparel
and big ornaments and rings and nose
Jewels and mantles and wimples and
curling pins and glasses and hoods and
wells.
Pretty hard on them, wasn'tit The
poor creatures did not have much left,
not even dress to change in when COM
pany came-not ring nor neccssa-
ry.
remember those 'round-tircs like
the moon,' like the new moon when
it is about three days old. [ wore one
when I was sweet sixteen. / was as
trim and pretty as a girl and had to
act girls part in play on the stage
on commencement night. [ was to be
a fashionable young lady and Bill
Maltbie or Jim Alexander, I've for
gotten which one, was the dude. Some
Of the girls made me round-tire,
which was then called a hustle. All
the women wore them, but l think
mine was trife larger than the av-
crage. 1t held a half peck of bran
and made my hindgear stick out about
foot. AS I wriggled about with my
long train dress rude boy slipped up
behind me and dropped quid of to-
bacco on the hustle, which caused
much laughter That hustle was as
big as big mans arm and tapercd
down at both ends, like the horns Of
the moon. Some women wore them
nearly as large, and the hump behind
would have made a comfortable seat
for small boy. Sometimes the stuff
fng leaked out and you could track
the girl all around town by the bran
she dropped. \ town hog could keep
fat on it. Sometimes they came un-
tied and dropped off, which was very
notifying. One day I picked up one
in the store where l was clerking.
hung it up in sight, but l never could
find the owner. But in course of time
bustlcs went out and when the humps
came back again they were not made
by that kind of round-tires, but made
of stiff grass cloth that was crimpcd