The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-12-19
WOMEN IN MEMS APPAREL.
,,rwRERs OF THE SEX WHO HAVE
WORN THE BREECHES.

MANY Have Done Service in Armies
Cor Centuries-Ladies of Quality
have Borne Arms for Their COun-
.rv-StrOng-Minded Females Meet
IdttIe Public Favor Anywhere.
From the St. Louis Republic.
Z Mrs. Martin, the Philadelphia minis
.sr,s wife. the mother of seven children,
rrbo despite her clerical environment and
hsr septuple matronhood insisted upon
5onino the breeches and roaming through
tho rectangular streets of the quaker town
an male attire-is this lady a representa-
rive of the past or of the future? OF de-
generation or regeneration? OF atayism
or revelation?
If she is all of the former. then she fur
rishes one more evidence that the aboli-
ron of all differences in the dress of the
sexes is one of the appalling possibilities
Of the next century.
If all the charms of woman's dress are
n he displaced by the commonplaces of
vests" and pants" if our Amandas and
our Amabiles are to assume the high col
lar the stiff hat and (heaven forfendD the
silver-headed cane that makes 'Cholly" so
portentous an apparldon, away will go at
a breath all of the thousand little thrills
and surprises and delights which in the
male mind are now associated with che
feminine costume. all the results of cen
turtles of civilization and progress, assisted
bv the acutest intelligence, the deepest
thought and the choicest artistic instinct
which that high priest or high prestess
of fashion, the milliner, has been able to
devote 10 the matter
viewed From n French Standard.
All this must give US pause. And while
we are pausing il may be we'll for us to
;Uumne and instruct our expecIant minds
by a backward glance upon the evolu-
tionary process whereby woman, step by
step. has encroached upon the male pre-
serves of pantaloons, Such a glance is
afforded by book just issued in France
entitled La Femme en- Culotte" (Woman
in Trousers'D. No single man could have
tackled so difficult problem. Two sar-
torial and literary geniuses, Ferdinand
Eau and Gustave Girrane, have associated
themselves in the enterprise. They have
found publisher in that fearless enter
prisng and wideawake advocate of prog
ress E. Flammarion. The book is illus
trated by reproductions of prints and pic
lures serious and sarcastic, which have
appeared in the last five centuries.
The first chapter is headed 1.-The Fight
for the Breeches." The authors have
found caricatures on this subject dating
as far back as the fifteenth century and
reaching up to our present era. The de-
tails are varied, according to the wit of
the caricaturist But the general idea is
always the same-the fight between one
man and one woman for the possession of
the bifurcated symbol of undivided author
ity In the cathedral at Rouen the sub
iect is carved in wood by medieval art
list. It abounds in the popular prints of
h nd oi1hfnpnfh centuries.
It is repeated in the comic papers OF the
present era.
Nav. the subject ITSELF without artistic
embellishments is to be found in the popu-
lar proverbs of all countries. The mem
DRY of man runneth not back 10 the time
when these kere first conceived by the WIS
dom of many or put into poignant phrase
by the wit of one.
Women i'm the Army.
The next chapter deals with woman SOL
diers The authors announce that they
will not go back 20 the Deluge, nor even
to Egvptian antiquity. They will not
trouble the eternal sleep of the amazons
who hold so large place In ancient ART
and literature, whose features ana whose
costumes have been made familiar by the
statues of Phidias. of Chesilas and OF
Polycletes. Nor will they disturb the rest
of those other amazons of 1870 who, IN
South America, fought for their nperty
against Francisco Pizarro, Zenobia OF Pal
myra Semiramis of Assyria and Dry
nege- Kego of Japan, the conqueror Oh no
rea, may all alike rest in peace SO lar
as our historians are concerned.
Looked at from a distance, as they phil
osophically remark, skirts and breeches
alike lose their charms
The authors acknowledge that the first
women in breeches, il the term IS to be
used iguratively, was the woman who
fret ir, defense of her CITY
or her country And the first woman in
breeches in a literal sense was she who
first enrolled herself in the regular army
and adopted the profession of arms and Its
necessary accouterments
The woman soldiers! History has re-
corded a long succession of them, Joan Of
Arc would cause much less astonishment
if one remembered that, far from being
an exception, she was one of a long line
who. in preceding centuries had vindicat-
ed the right of heroic womanhood TO
trench upon the province of male heroism.
In the time of the crusaders there were
stately chatelaines, who, rather than lose
the company of their husbands shared
all their hardships and their dangers IN
coats of mail that defied arrows and de-
lection. Michaud tells that after the siege
Of Saint-Jea DAcre the SaracenS found
three of these heroines among their cap
tured heroes. We shall never know how
many were killed on that field or how
many succeeded in making good their es-
cape.
Not All Heroines.
The woman soldier in all recorded time
has represented every rank in the social
scale. from the daughters of noble houses
to the daughters of the slums. Some of
them were led naturally to the career of
arms by the environment in which they
found themselves, by the contemporary
mood They were warriors by instinct and
ty race. Others were thrust into battle
almost against their wills, by the force of
circumstances, some even becoming war
riors through very hatred of warm self
defense and not in offense.
Were they all Joan of Arcs, all maids
our woman soldiers?' ask the historians
tentatively. They are fain 10 answer that
II would be hazardous to insist upon the
hamelessness of all. Nine. de st. Balmont
was known as the Christian amazon of the
seventeenth century and Geneveve Pre-
moy in the eighteenth assumed the title