Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-06-28
CONCERNING DRESS

you have ample room to breathe. Any
form of dress that contracts your
powers of breathing is unhealthful and
far from beautiful. For all-round
wear, few fashions exceed in common
sense the loose costume insisted upon
in the gymnasium; with a little o
length in the skirt than is permissi-
BILE when n is playing basketball,
running or jumping, this dress is ideal
for the schoolroom. For walking, and
every schoolgirl should take a long
walk every day as a matter of course,
the only healthful dress is one that
easily and thoroughly clears the
ground.
You girls who read this possess a
great advantage over girls who lived
a century ago. l suppose 1t is hard
for you to realize that women who,
were they still on the earth, would
be more than a century old, were once
girls like yourselves. They had pref
ty hard times under the regime then
In vogue, for they often had to spend
hours lying fiat on their backs,
| strapped fast to a board in order that
they might be perfectly straight and,
when they did not recline in this tor
tured fashion, they were equally COM
PEELED to be uncomfortable, for they
had to sit or walk with a stiff board
fastened to their shoulders. In the
end, most of them gained what is a
great beauty for any girl-a fiat back
and a graceful carriage of the head
but they did not usually have such
health as you are born to possess.
They wore wretchedly thin shoes
with soles like paper, pointed toes
and pointed heels. The roads In those
days were muddy and the girls were
afraid to go out when it rained. Their
dresses were of muslin, close and
clinging, with baby waists that ended
under the arm-pits, and in the house
and out most of them wore either
turbans or caps of muslin and lace
trimmed with flowers, velvet and rib.
bon.
Your fashions are less picturesque,
but are really finer and better adapt
cd to your tramping out of doors in
rain and sun, and to your varied oc-
equations when in the house.
A girl who would like to be splen-
didly well must always wear shoes
that are neither too loose o too
tight. A shoe that wobbles about and
does not nicely fit the foot, Is as little
to be desired as one that distorts 1t
by cramping and pinching and crush
ing the toes together, or otherwise de-
forming one Of the prettiest features
of the body.
A chiropodist told me n day that
in his opinion nearly all dealers in
shoes hired lunatics for statesmen.
I said: isn't that an extreme
statement"
mot at all,' he said. "If you could
only see the feet that do, the young
girls who have bunions and corns and
hobble about in shoes never intended
by Nature for their wearing, the old
er women whose feet were ruined be-
fore they were Is, you would under
SLduu WudL L Lledu. vi SOuloC, hN
added, eff everybody had sense enough
to adopt hygienic shoes, with broad
soles and low heels, l should have tc
choose another profession, for my
vocation would be gone"
Never neglect to change your out
door shoes for indoor ones when yor
come in, expecting to spend the even
} ing at home. The shoes last longe'
7 and the feet feel better If this precau
ton is regarded.
have not said anything about I'm
derclothing, because most girls wea'
[. what is most agreeable to the skin
[ and are influenced in their choice b,
the judgment of their mothers. What
. ever you adopt, notice that it shoult
frequently be changed and be careful
| to have it good of it's kind. Daint!
underclothing is one of the character
l istics in dress of refined and fas
tidious girls.
Copyright. 1906, by Joseph B. Bowles.)