The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-01-10
MODERN DRESS is TO BLAME FOR
MANY PREVAILING EVILS.

Practically all of the great evils
now confronting the civilized nations
of the globe must be laid at the door
of the feminine craze for indecent
and extravagant dress, according to
DR.. Foveau de Cournelles, one of the
best known physicians in Europe anG
leader in the suffrage movement for
more than thirty years. These star
Ting conclusions are set forth in an
article by DR.. de Cournelles, dealing
with the effect of immodest and eX.
pensive dress, and just published in
La Revue Mondaile, in Paris. Dr., de
Cournelles indicts "her majesty. Dame
Fashion" on the following counts:
/. She forces her subjects to make
themselves slender by artificial
means.
2. She causes women to expose
their bodies to all kinds of weather.
8. By indecent variations of styles
she causes women to spend so much
money on clothes that many men are
unable to marry, and those who are
married are unable to maintain large
families Of children.
T. She is the direct cause of much
immortality prevalent in civilized ma
tions
5. She is a powerful indirect cause
of drunkenness and eXtravagant eX-
penditure in other lines, since women
who are fashionably dressed love to
display themselves in restaurants,
cafes and at the theatre.
6. BY sharpening the contrast be-
tween wealth and misery she is the
cause of much of the revolutionary
agitation now spreading throughout
the globe.
If woman appears at all plump
her dressmaker tells her: Madame,
you are too fat; you must do some
thing to make yourself slender" says
DR.. de Cournelles. And she follows
this advice. So we see the corset
useful to sustain the body, become an
instrument that causes abnormal dis
largements.
'Women's clothing has reduced it.
self to the most simple expression by
the slenderness of the body on the
one hand and by the scantiness of the
raiment on the other.
Now, as to my second point A
great part of the body is uncovered
by the present day fashions. That
permits dame fashion to collaborate
with the physicians. insofar as fees
are concerned, but it is something
that physicians do not desire. In ex-
posing the throat, the back, the limbs
and the arms to all of the cold winds,
dame fashion produces all sorts of
colds, grippe. tuberculosis and helps
lower the birth rate. A woman is no
more mistress of her body. Style is
sovereign!
And as to the children-they are
scarcely dressed at all in France. So
we have the Sparticist selection
Only the robust survive, and the 9TH
ers, with bare legs exposed to the
weather and insufficiently clad, catch
all sorts of affections.
ION the third point we wish the
things de lux We spend the most
is these heavy expenditures which kill
the infant before it has a chance to
be born. For men remain bachelors
not only because they cannot afford
to maintain wives in such style, but
because they themselves love to asso.
ciate with women gorgeously dressed.
Everything that diminishes the
amount of money spent in the home
itself aids in the suppression of chill
dren and dame fashion is the leader.
Life has become more dear and
more complicated. 1t is all out of pro
portion to the increase of salaries, but
it brings at the same time by pecul-
liar anomaly, more coquetry into the
world because dame fashion reigns
and brings misery, immortality, jeal-
ousy and the things which debauch
human lives"