The leader., 1895-08-20
SAM JONES ON BLOOMERS.
Some Advanced Ideas on the
New Woman.
Tho Reverend Sam says Inflated Pants
May he All Right Where They are
the Custom, but They are Sos
Good Epeugh for His Vito.
COPYRIGHT 1893

oehObk BiOuhu dRdtuSt tuC CODulLiOu Ol
things now obtaining in many places.
The bicycle craze evidently has the
country. Woman wants to ride the oi-
cycle. Boomers come in, to say the
least of it. very handy to them in this
new exercise.
After all, we are creatures of custom.
All innovations, whether moral or So
cial, are revolutionary. l was talking
with gentleman who had spent two
days at the home of Ii Hung Chang,
the Gladstone of China. He said that
Lii Hung Chang was one of the most in-
telligent men he had met in Europe.
He 'dined with him on one occasion.
There were twenty-seven courses on
the table from first to last They sat
down to dinner at half past o'clock in
the afternoon and got up from the ta-
BILE at 2 o'clock next morning. Dog
and cat and rat were three of the cour-
ses. Custom will make a man eat dogs.
cats, and rats. He said after the dim
ner was over Lii Hung Chang said to
him, Il cant show you my wife, but I
will show you her foot" which he pro-
ceeded to do. He said it was the con-
ventional female Chinese foot three
and quarter inches long and two and
a quarter inches broad. l asked him
if Lee Hung Chang, this intelligent
man, followed custom and had his own
daughters feet thus bound. thereby
making them cripples for life-for no
Chinese woman can walk on the con-
ventioral Chinese woman's foot. He
said, ''ef course" j asked him then
how he could account for the fact that
one of tie most intelligent men in Eu-
rope wolld subject his girls to such
cruelty, knowing that from the bind
ing of tf cir feet thousands of Chi
uese girls die with blood poison and
other diseases brought on by the cruel
bandages He said he could only an
swer it in the fact that custom was
more potent than sense. And vet in
this christian, civilized nation, Amer
lean women are doing for them
selves today something worse than
the binding of their feet. There is
only blood and muscles and bones in
the foot of woman, but the latter-day
corset with it's pressure around the
body comprising every vital organ Of
the system, alas, is it not less harm
full to women to bind their feet than to
pind their waist?
When a custom is stronger than
sense, and sense of propriety, and some
times of decency, then custom will hold
sway. Largely those who wear bloom
els can afford to " ear bloomcis. The
young lady who cannot affor1 to wear
them had better not wear thene. If her
father is a millionei ire, or her ...atrimo
nial allegiances are already made, sho
might afford to wear bloomers. But
the middle class, with it's modest wo-
men whose stock in trade is largely
common sense, industry and modesty,
l doubt if they want to wear bloomers :
am sure they cant afford to wear them
| until custom. at least, shall assert itself
in that direction more strongly than
| we find it today. am persuaded that
the wearing of bloomers will be large
ly confined to the 400 of every commu
nifty.
Idoubt If the bicycle is good thing
for girls-my girls. am sure it is not
a good thing for wife and mother
not for my wife or my mother. There
| is no sin attaching to women wearing
| bloomers or riding bicycles; that is,
| taking the ten commandments as the
standard. THESE advance movements
along the lines of woman's rights and
| women asserting their rights, l sup
pose, is good thing in some quarters ;
but
Rocky baby buntin'
Your dady's gone ahuntin'
To get o little rabbit skin
To wrap the baby up in'
sounds more motherly to me than
Fellow Citizens: l rise before you
upon this occasion to champion the
| views of woman suffrage, and to de-
clare myself in favor of equal rights in
all things. as between man and wo-
man, and SO on.
| Everybody to-their taste. said the
old woman as she kissed the COW.
hardly know what will happen next.
II heard boozy fellow say the other
day he conld get just as drunk on wa-
| ter as he could be; that he had been SO
drunk on water that he couldn't walk;
| that he would swear that he had been
as drunk on water rs he had ever been
on the land. can see now how fell
| low can get drunk on water. / have
known all the time that butter-millx
would make him tight and whisky
would make him drunk. but now ! see
he can get as drunk on water as he can
on the land.
All in all am for the sisters; every
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