Chapter II: Part 2

And, Pallas and Venus, if now you were holding
A talk over womanhood, what would you say,
The words of wise counsel while you were unfolding,
If some one should show you these pictures to-day?
I dream of your faces: divinest compassion
Would yearn the poor toiler to pity and save;
And your largeness of scorn would descend on the fashion
Which binds, unresisting, the idler a slave.

The reaction in favor of a more sensible dress which followed was of brief duration. During this time, however, the long trains were seldom seen, and thoughtful women began to hope that the arbitrary rule of fashion was over. It was not long, however, before the panier period arrived, and what was popularly known as the pull-back was accepted as the correct style in fashion's world. Of this latter conceit little need be said, for it has so recently passed from view that all remember its peculiarity, which to the ordinary observer seemed to be a settled determination on the part of its originators to render walking as difficult and fatiguing as possible, while fully exposing the outline of the wearer's body below the waist at every step. What in '60 or '70 would have been accounted the height of indecency, is in the eighties perfectly proper in the fashionable world. During this time it was not enough to have the skirts very narrow, they must at every step give the outline of the limbs [or as our Minnesota solon would put it, _nether_ limbs], hence we find the pull-backs in which "two shy knees appeared clad in a single trouser."

Such have been the inconsistencies, incongruities, and absurdities of fashion as illustrated in the past three decades, in view of which one may well ask whether in fashion's eyes women are such paragons of ugliness that these ever-varying styles (introduced, we are seriously informed, to conserve to her beauty,) are absolutely essential, and by what rule of art can we explain the fact that the ponderous hoopskirt was the essential requirement of beauty in the sixties and the enormous bustles demanded in the seventies. The truth is, fashion is supremely indifferent alike to all laws of art and beauty, health and life, decency and propriety--a fact that must be patent to any thoughtful person who examines the prevailing styles of a generation. I submit that the wildest extremes to which well-meaning but injudicious dress reformers have gone in the past have been marked by nothing more inartistic than the costume of the reigning belle in 1860. Each successive decade has been marked by an extreme which, surveyed from the vantage ground of the present, is as ridiculously absurd as it has been wanting in beauty Nowhere have the laws of true art been so severely ignored as in the realm of fashion. Yet this view of the problem palls into insignificance when we come to examine the question from the standpoint of health and life.

One would think that after thousands of years of sickness and death, with all the advantages of increased education and a broadening intellectual horizon, we would have arrived at such an appreciation of the value of health and the solemn duty we owe to posterity, as to compel this consideration to enter into our thoughts when we adopted styles of dress; yet nowhere is the weakness of our present civilization more marked or its hollowness so visible, even to the superficial thinker, as in the realm of fashion, _where every consideration of health and even of life, and all sense of responsibility to future generations are brushed aside as trivialities not to be seriously considered_. In vain have physicians and physiologists written, lectured, and demonstrated the fatal results of yielding to fashion. The learned Doctor Trall in writing on this subject wisely observes:

The evil effects of tight-lacing, or of lacing at all, and of
binding the clothing around the hips, instead of suspending it
from the shoulders, can never be fully realized without a
thorough education in anatomy and physiology. And if the
illustrations[3] here presented should effect the needed reform
in fashionable dress, the resulting health and happiness to the
human race would be incalculable; for the health of the mothers
of each generation determines, in a very large measure, the vital
stamina of the next. It is obvious that, if the diameter of the
chest, at its lower and broader part, is diminished by lacing, or
any other cause, to the extent of one fourth or one half, the
lungs B, B, are pressed in towards the heart, A, the lower ribs
are drawn together and press on the liver, C, and spleen, E,
while the abdominal organs are pressed downward on the pelvic
viscera. The stomach, D, is compressed in its transverse
diameter; both the stomach, upper intestines, and liver are
pressed downward on the kidneys, M, M, and on the lower portions
of the bowels [the intestinal tube is denoted by the letters f,
j, and k,] while the bowels are crowded down on the uterus, i,
and bladder, g. _Thus every vital organ is either functionally
obstructed or mechanically disordered_, and diseases more or less
aggravated, the condition of all. In post-mortem examinations the
liver has been found deeply indented by the constant and
prolonged pressure of the ribs, in consequence of tight-lacing.
The brain-organ, protected by a bony inclosure, has not yet been
distorted externally by the contrivances of milliners and
mantuamakers; but, lacing the chest, by interrupting the
circulation of the blood, prevents its free return from the
vessel of the brain, and so permanent congestion of that organ,
with constant liability to headache, vertigo, or worse
affections, becomes a "second nature." The vital resources of
every person, and all available powers of mind and body, are
measurable by the respiration. Precisely as the breathing is
lessened, the length of life is shortened; not only this, but
life is rendered correspondingly useless and miserable while it
does exist. It is impossible for any child, whose mother has
diminished her breathing capacity by lacing, to have a sound and
vigorous organization. If girls will persist in ruining their
vital organs as they grow up to womanhood, and if women will
continue this destructive habit, the race must inevitably
deteriorate. It may be asserted, therefore, without exaggeration,
that not only the welfare of the future generations, but the
salvation of the race depends on the correction of this evil
habit. The pathological consequences of continued and prolonged
pressure on any vital structure are innutrition, congestion,
inflammation, and ulceration, resulting in weakness, waste of
substance, and destruction of tissue. The normal sensibility of
the part is also destroyed. No woman can ever forget the pain she
endured when she first applied the corsets; but in time the
compressed organs become torpid; the muscles lose their
contractile power, and she feels dependent on the mechanical
support of the corset. But the mischief is not limited to local
weakness and insensibility. The general strength and general
sensibility correspond with the breathing capacity. If she has
diminished her "breath of life," she has just to that extent
destroyed all normal sensibility. She can neither feel nor think
normally. But in place of pleasurable sensations and ennobling
thoughts, are an indescribable array of aches, pains, weaknesses,
irritations, and nameless distresses of body, with dreamy
vagaries, fitful impulses, and morbid sentimentalities of mind.
And yet another evil is to be mentioned to render the catalogue
complete. Every particle of food must be aerated in the lungs
before it can be assimilated. It follows, therefore, that no one
can be well nourished who has not a full, free, and unimpeded
action of the lungs. In the contracted chest, the external
measurement is reduced one half; but as the upper portions of the
lungs cannot be fully inflated until the lower portions are fully
expanded, it follows that the breathing capacity is diminished
more than one half. It is wonderful how anyone can endure
existence, or long survive, in this devitalized condition; yet,
thousands do, and with careful nursing, manage to bring into the
world several sickly children. The spinal distortion is one of
the ordinary consequences of lacing. No one who laces habitually
can have a straight or strong back. The muscles being unbalanced
become flabby or contracted, unable to support the trunk of the
body erect, and a curvature, usually a double curvature, of the
spine is the consequence. And if anything were needed to
aggravate the spinal curvature, intensify the compression of the
internal viscera, and add to the general deformity, it is found
in the modern contrivance of stilted gaiters. These are made with
heels so high and narrow that locomotion is awkward and painful,
the centre of gravity is shifted "to parts unknown," and the head
is thrown forwards and the hips projected backwards to maintain
perpendicularity.

[3] I have reproduced the admirable cuts found in Dr.
Trall's physiology, as they were essential to the
understanding of the text quoted, and also because they
convey more vividly than words the injury necessarily
sustained by those who persist in outraging nature and
violating the laws of their being by improper dress.

In speaking of the destructiveness to health caused by woman's dress, Prof. Oscar B. Moss, M. D., declares:

Although the corset is the chief source of constraint to the
kidneys, liver, stomach, pancreas, and spleen, forcing them
upward to encroach upon the diaphragm and compressing the lungs
and heart, its evils are rivalled by those resulting from
suspending the skirts from the waist and hips, by which means the
pelvic organs are forced downward and often permanently
displaced. Now, add to these errors a belt drawn snugly around
the waist, and we have before us a combination of the most
malignant elements of dress which it would be possible to invent.

The waist belt enforces the evils which the corset and skirts
inaugurate. Every proposition of anatomy and physiology bearing
upon this subject appeals to reason. Did the abdominal organs
require for their well-being less room than we find in the
economy of nature, less room would have been provided. Nature
bestows not grudgingly, neither does she lavish beyond the
requirements of perfect health.

The same laws which govern the nutrition of muscles, apply also
to the vital organs. Pressure that impedes circulation of blood
through them must suppress their functions proportionally. With
the lungs, heart, and digestive organs impaired by external
devices, which force them into abnormal relations, health is
impossible. Every other part of the body--nay, life
itself--depends upon the perfection of these organs. The ancients
fittingly called them the tripod of life.

Consumption, heart disease, dyspepsia, and the multiform phases
of uterine and ovarian diseases are among the natural and
frequent consequences of compressing the internal organs. Men
could not endure such physical indignities as women inflict upon
themselves. Should they attempt to do so, they would not long
hold the proud position of "bread winners," which is now theirs
by virtue of their more robust qualities.

It is difficult to imagine a slavery more senseless, cruel, or far-reaching in its injurious consequences than that imposed by fashion on civilized womanhood during the past generation. Her health has been sacrificed, and in countless instances her life has paid the penalty; while posterity has been dwarfed, maimed, and enervated, and in body, mind, and soul deformed at its behests. In turn every part of her body has been tortured. On her head at fashion's caprice the hair of the dead has been piled. Hats and bonnets, wraps and gowns laden with heavy beads and jet have as seriously impaired her health as they have rendered her miserable; the tight lacing required by the wasp waists has produced generations of invalids and bequeathed to posterity suffering that will not vanish for many decades. By it, as has been pointed out by the authorities cited, every vital organ in the body has been seriously affected. The heart and lungs, by nature protected by a cage of bone, have been abnormally crushed in a space so contracted as to absolutely prohibit the free action upon which health depended; while the downward pressure was necessarily equally injurious to her delicate organism. The tightly drawn corset has proved an unmitigated curse to the living and a legacy of misery and disease to posterity. And this cruel deforming of the most beautiful of God's creations was said to be beautiful simply because fashion willed it. Nor was this all; enormous bustles and skirts of prodigious dimension have borne their weight largely upon that part of her body which above all else should be absolutely free from pressure. By this means the most sensitive organs have been ruthlessly subjected to down pressing weights which for exquisite torture and for the absolute certainty of the long train of agony that must result, rival the heartless ingenuity of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Beyond this generation of debilitated and invalided mothers, rises a countless posterity robbed of its birthright of health while yet unborn.[4] A possible genius deformed and dwarfed by the weight of a fashionable dress; a brain which might have been brilliant rendered idiotic by the constant pressure of a corset, and the wearisome weight of a "stylish" dress pressing about the hips; a child whose natural capacity might have carried him to the seat of a Webster or into the laboratory of an Edison, condemned to drag a weakly, diseased, or deformed body through life, with mind ever chained to the flesh, through the heartless imposition which fashion imposed on his mother! What thought can be more appalling to a conscientious woman? Yet until a revolution is accomplished and a reign of reason and common sense inaugurated, this crime against the unborn will continue. But some argue the days of these extremes are past.

[4] In discussing the solemn duty mothers owe to their
offspring, Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller sensibly observes:--

Are women ignorant of the mischief they do to their
offspring, or are they indifferent to consequences? Has the
true maternal love become extinct, in this age of advanced
civilization, that women ignore all the laws of nature while
anticipating the glory of motherhood? We know not; yet we
often see what causes a thrill of pity in our soul for the
future of the child yet unborn: a mother laced within stiff
bones and steel, while the very instincts of being cry out
against the sin of it. Surely every child has a right to be
well born! Wealth may be a grand inheritance, but health is
a better one, as any poor suffering creature will testify,
whose misery the most expensive doctors have been called
upon to alleviate without avail. And how can a child be well
born unless its parents observe the laws of life bearing
upon the birth and rearing of children? It is impossible. If
a mother will so clothe herself that the vitality which
properly belongs to her baby becomes exhausted and
destroyed, the child is robbed, as a natural consequence,
and perhaps the weakened, puny, distorted, fretful little
creature, who is innocent of the cause of its own
sufferings, will live to become a curse to the world instead
of the blessing that it would have been had rational
conditions been observed before its birth.

* * * * *

Tight corsets grudgingly loosened a quarter of an inch at a
time, heavy skirts, and all the evil conditions we are so
familiar with, are still retained as the months pass,
bringing ever nearer what should be the very happiest hour
of woman's existence--that in which she is to be intrusted
with the keeping, training, and guidance of a new human
soul. Perhaps her baby comes into the world dead or
deformed, perhaps deprived of certain of its faculties; or
it may be that it possesses life and all of its special
senses and organs in such a diminished degree that the whole
of its future becomes a pain rather than a joy, while its
miserable, puny structure remains a lasting reproach to its
parents as long as they live.

I answer not past, but they are assuming other forms. Since 1890 dawned, the evils in some respects have been aggravated; for it must not be forgotten that the daughters of the present decade have, in order to be fashionable, compressed beyond all healthful bounds the flesh of their arms, retarding circulation and inviting pneumonia and other ills. And in order to look stylish, thousands of women wear dress waists so tight that no free movement of the upper body is possible; indeed in numbers of instances ladies are compelled to put their bonnets on before attempting the painful ordeal of getting into their glove-fitting dress waists. Many young women to-day, yielding to the spell of fashion, place the corset next to their flesh, while a still greater number have merely the thinnest possible undershirt between the flesh and the corset, after which they tightly draw the dress waist until it meets. This seems incredible, but it is vouched for by several ladies of my acquaintance, among whom are physicians whose large practice among their sisters gives them peculiar facilities for knowing the absolute facts. Health, posterity, and all the instincts of the higher self are ruthlessly sacrificed to the fickle folly of fashion's criminal caprice. And we must not forget that even now the sweeping train is coming in vogue and correctly attired ladies must consent to carry the germs of death with quantities of filth from the streets of our metropolitan cities into their homes of wealth and refinement. The corset and high-heeled shoes, the two most deadly foes to maternity and posterity, are also seen at the present time, on every hand.

If outraged nature could show the procession of mothers sacrificed on fashion's altar during the past generation, or unveil the suffering and deformity being borne by posterity at the present time, through this slavery, the world would be thrilled with an indescribable horror. Health, comfort, and human life have paid the penalty of a criminal servitude to the modern juggernaut, before whose car millions of our women are bowing in abject servility, knowing full well that at each turn of its wheel new pains or fresh diseases will be inflicted. And what power controls and gives life to this mistress of modern civilization? At whose behest is this crime against reason, life, and posterity perpetrated? _The cupidity of the shrewd and unscrupulous and the caprice of the shallow and frivolous._

The moral aspect of this subject is even more grave than the hygienic. Anything which injures the physical body, whether it be licentiousness, intemperance, gluttony, or vicious modes of dress, is necessarily evil from an ethical point of view. Not simply because the law of our being decrees that whatever drains or destroys the physical vitality must sooner or later sap the vital forces of the brain; but also because anything is ethically destructive which chains the mind to the realm of animality, when, unfettered, it should be unfolding in spiritual strength and glory. Thus it will be readily seen that any article of clothing which presses upon the vitals of the body so as to cause displacement of the delicate organism, or so cumbersome as to cause general fatigue, anything, as is the case with high heels, which throws the body out of its equilibrium, or any article of dress which makes the mind ever conscious of the body by virtue of its uncomfortableness, is injurious from an ethical point of view. This fact which has been so generally overlooked will become more apparent, if for the sake of illustration we suppose for a moment that a plant is endowed with reason and sensation, and obeying the general law of its being, and the persuasive and inspiring influence of the sun and rain, is struggling to rise heavenward, and give to the radiant world above its impearled wealth--its gorgeous bloom, its marvellous fragrance and fruit; but by virtue of the bonds of a prison-house below,--a small pot or a rocky encasement, its lifework is thwarted, its bloom, perfume, and fruit, if they come at all, are stunted, limited, and imperfect. For generations woman's condition has been like that of the plant, the wealth of her nature has been dwarfed, the marvellous richness of her life has been marred by the imprisoned conditions of her body, and infinitely more sad and far-reaching have been the baleful consequences upon millions of her offspring, dwarfed, weakly, sickly, enfeebled in body and soul. _A mother whose thoughts have voluntarily or involuntarily been held in the atmosphere of the physical nature, necessarily imparts to her child a legacy of animality which, like the corpse of a dead being, clings to the soul throughout its pilgrimage._ Terrible as have been fashion's ravages on woman's physical health, the curse which she has exerted when the ethical aspect of the case is entertained, far transcends it.

It is a curious fact that almost all the opposition from women to proposed reforms in woman's dress comes from two extremes in society. Those who do no independent thinking, taking all their thoughts and opinions from the expressed views of the men with whom they associate, and the profoundly earnest and thoughtful, but conservative women of society. The opposition of the former class is merely the echo of husbands, brothers, fathers, and lovers; but the others are moved by conviction, and for this reason their views are worthy of consideration. They fear that any radical change will exert an immoral influence. Their minds are swayed by ancient thought which throughout all ages has cast its baleful shadow over the brain of the world. They are held under the spell of a conservatism which unquestioningly tolerates established institutions and existing orders, but has no confidence in aught that proposes to break with these, even though the new has reason and common sense clearly on its side. Thus time and again fashions have been tolerated, although known to be morally enervating and singularly repulsive to all refined sensibilities; while proposals from without for reforms based on the laws of health and beauty have called forth the most determined opposition from this conscientious class, merely because the proposed innovations have not conformed to ideas entertained by virtue of prevailing fashions, and have been therefore regarded immoral. And herein lies an important point to be considered. Anything which is radically unlike prevailing standards or styles to which we have become accustomed will impress most persons as being immodest or indecent. _The unusual in dress is usually denounced as immoral_ because we are all prone to allow our prejudice to obscure our reason and o'ersway our judgment. This point _must_ be recognized before any real reform can be accomplished. When humanity has grown sufficiently wise to reason broadly and view problems on their own merits, aside from preconceived opinion or inherited prejudice, real instead of false standards of morality will prevail, and we shall cease to condemn anything as pernicious simply because it is unusual, radically unlike that to which we have been accustomed or revolutionary in its tendency. Let me make this if possible more apparent by an illustration, because it bears such an important relation to the main issue. If men had for ages worn long flowing robes, completely enveloping their bodies, but on a certain day with one accord exchanged them for a costume similar to that now seen throughout the civilized world, society would experience a distinct shock; immoral, indecent, pernicious, and vulgar would mildly express the sentiment of conventional thought, until the same society had become accustomed to the change. To us at the present time it is difficult to conceive how women of sense and refinement submitted to the swinging-cage paraphernalia of the sixties, or the Grecian bend of a later date. Yet in those days the severely plain skirts of the present would have seemed positively indecent. It has been necessary to dwell on this thought in order to sufficiently remove existing prejudice to enable a fair consideration of the question in its broader aspects. I have also introduced fair examples of prevailing fashions during the past generation and reproductions of Greek, Shakespearian and other simple costumes worn at the present time by the queens of the stage, to show by comparison how infinitely more graceful, beautiful, comfortable, healthful, and by their very elements of comfort and healthfulness, ethically superior, are these costumes to those which conventionalism sanctioned in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Is there anything immodest, indecent, or suggestive of impropriety in Mary Anderson in the graceful Grecian costume of Parthenia, presented on the preceding page? Of the tens of thousands of people who have witnessed the performances of Madame Modjeska, Miss Anderson, Julia Marlowe, or Margaret Mather in the costumes given in this paper, it is not probable that a perceptible number have seen aught improper or even injuriously suggestive, notwithstanding they are so radically unconventional. Surely no mind accustomed to think broadly and view problems on all sides, and unaccustomed to revel in the sewer of sensualism would see in the attire of these estimable ladies aught but costumes at once graceful, refined, and apparently infinitely more comfortable and healthful than those represented in any of the fashion plates I have reproduced, and which millions of women of good sense have under the stress of conventionalism been compelled to wear. Let us compare Miss Anderson's Grecian costume with the dress of a society belle in the seventies, which required from twenty to thirty yards of material, and when completed and fitted transformed the wearer into a monstrosity with an unsightly hump on the back, and a street cleaner of immense dimensions trailing for several feet in her rear.

From artistic, hygienic, economical, and ethical points of view, to say nothing of common sense and comfort, is not the simple and beautiful costume of Parthenia incomparably superior to that which marked the second decade of the past generation? Would not woman to-day clothed in close-fitting garments of silk or woollen fabric, with an outer robe or loose dress fashioned something after the order of the ancient Grecian or Roman pattern, be far more beautiful than she is as a slave to fashion's fickle fancy, while the requirements of life, health, and comfort would be fully met? Again, let us compare one of the plates of the sixties with its wonderful expanse of skirt to the simple, graceful attire of Miss Marlowe as Viola in the "Twelfth Night," and laying aside all preconceived opinions (with the influence which we have seen the unusual plays in fashioning our ideas of propriety,) does not our reason and common sense sustain the view that the latter is far more refined, simple, and less vulgarly ostentatious than the inflated garment of the early sixties? Or if we compare the pictures of Modjeska and Miss Marlowe in Shakespearian roles, or that of the former in the neat and graceful gathered gown, and Miss Mather in the simple peasant dress, are they not one and all far more chaste, artistic, sensible, and healthful than the hoop-skirt, bustle, and train, or the tie-back? Do not, however, understand that I advocate the introduction of any of these costumes. It is for woman and woman alone to decide what she will wear, and in this paper I am merely seeking to second the splendid work that has by her been inaugurated, and by speaking as one of the younger men of this decade, to voice what I believe American womanhood will find to be the sentiment of the rising generation, whenever she makes a concerted effort to emancipate herself from the slavery of Parisian fashions. There are many evidences that the hour is ripe for a sensible revolt, and that if the movement is guided by wise and judicious minds it will be a success. Two things seem to me to be of paramount importance.

(1.) The commission of women acting for the Council should decide definitely upon the nature and extent of changes desired. The ideal costume should be clearly defined and ever present in their mind. But it would be exceedingly unwise to attempt any radical change at once. This has been more than anything the secret of the partial or total failures of the movements of this character in the past. The changes should be gradually made. Every spring and autumn let an advance step be taken, and in order to do this an American fashion commission or bureau should be established, under the auspices of the dress reform committee of the Women's Council, which at stated intervals should issue bulletins and illustrated fashion plates. If the ideal is kept constantly in view, and every season slight changes are made toward the desired garment, the victory will, I believe, be a comparatively easy one, for the splendid common sense of the American women and men will cordially second the movement. _Concerted action, a clearly defined ideal toward which to move, and gradual changes_--these are points which it seems to me are vitally important. One reason why the most ridiculous and inartistic extremes in fashion have been generally adopted is found in this policy of gradual introduction, a fact which must impress anyone who carefully examines the fashions of the past. First there has been a slight alteration, shortly becoming more pronounced, and with each season it has grown more marked, although perhaps not for four or six years has the extreme been reached. At every step there have been complaints from various quarters, but steadily and persistently has the fashion been pushed until it reached its climax, after which we have had its gradual decline. This was the history of the hoop skirt and the Grecian bend, and has been that of most of the extremes which have marked the past, and we can readily believe that in no other way could womanhood have been insnared by such supreme and criminal folly as has characterized fashion's caprices in unnumbered instances.

(2.) Another very essential point is the proper education of the girls of to-day, for to them will fall, in its richest fruition, the blessings of this splendid reform if it be properly carried on, and if they be everywhere instructed to set health above fashion, and seek the beauty of Venus de Medici rather than the pseudo beauty of the wretched, deformed invalid, who at the dictates of the modern Babylon has trampled reason and common sense, health and comfort, the happiness of self and the enjoyment of her posterity under foot. Teach the girls to be American; to be independent; to scorn to copy fashion, manners, or habits that come from decaying civilizations, and which outrage all sentiment of refinement, laws of life, or principles of common sense. The American girl is naturally independent and well endowed with reason and common sense. Once shown the wisdom and importance of this _American_ movement, and she will not be slow to cordially embrace it. In many respects the hour is most propitious, owing to a combination of causes never before present, among which may be mentioned the growing independence of American womanhood; the enlarged vision that has come to her through the wonderfully diverse occupations and professions which she has recently embraced; the growing consciousness of her ability to succeed in almost every vocation of life. The latitude enjoyed by her in matters of dress in the mountains and seashore resorts; the growth of women's gymnasiums; the emphasis given to hygienic instruction in schools, and the recent quiet introduction of a perfectly comfortable apparel for morning wear, which, strange to say, has originated where one would least expect, among the most fashionable belles of the Empire city.[5] This significant innovation which is reported by the daily press, as becoming quite popular among the young ladies of the wealthy districts of New York, consists of a comfortable blouse worn over knickerbocker trousers. Clad in this comfortable attire, the belles come to breakfast, nor do they subsequently change their dress during the morning if they intend remaining indoors. If a sedate or fastidious caller is announced, a beautiful tea-gown, which is at hand, is slipped into, and the young lady is appropriately clad to suit even conventional requirements. The bicycle and lawn tennis costumes now becoming so popular also exercise a subtile but marked influence in favor of rational dress reform, not only giving young ladies the wonderful comfort and health-giving freedom which for ages have been denied her sex, but also by accustoming them to these radically unconventional costumes.[6]

[5] In speaking of this practical dress reform on the part
of the belles of New York, the Boston _Daily Globe_ recently
observed editorially: The great question now agitating the
fashionable women of Fifth Avenue is: "Do you wear
knickerbockers?"

Stripped of all apologetic circumlocution, "knickerbockers"
are simply loose, easy trousers, above which is worn a
becoming blouse waist, and thus attired, the belles of New
York come down to breakfast. Nor are the trousers
subsequently removed while the ladies are about the house,
unless some conservative caller is announced, when a stylish
tea-gown can be jumped into in a second, and the lady is in
faultless female costume.

That women should be handicapped in their locomotion in
their own homes is simply a relic of oriental slavery and
prudery, and the revolt against it is sensible and
wholesome. That they have come to stay is evident, while
improved costumes for shop girls, and other women engaged in
business every day in the year, are certain to follow in the
order of progress.--_Boston Globe._

It might be well also for the council to recommend the
formation of societies in each community where social or
society gatherings of those interested might be held at
stated intervals, at which all members would appear in
dresses made with special regard to health, comfort, and
beauty, and in which all garments would conform to the
general ideal recommended by the council.

[6] As the paper is being set up my attention has been attracted
to a remarkably sensible signed editorial in the Boston
_Sunday Globe_, of July 26, by the brilliant writer and
sensible thinker, Adelaide A. Claftin, from which I extract
the following:

Bishop Coxe's fulmination against the riding of bicycles by
women has attracted considerable attention, but to the
student of social movements it is not strange that Bishop
Coxe should object. The real oddity is that scarcely anybody
else, apparently, has objected.

That young girls from the best families should within a
short time have betaken themselves to whirling through the
public thoroughfares, like so many boys, is certainly a new
departure from all old fashioned canons of feminine decorum,
at least as startling as many that have brought down all
sorts of thunderbolts from pulpit and press. Had it been a
prerequisite that an amendment to the United States
Constitution, or even a statute of a State Legislature
should be obtained, the girls would doubtless have had to
wait many a weary year.

It is not long since another church dignitary, Dr. Morgan
Dix, objected to the entrance of girls into universities,
because it was not "proper for young women to be exposed to
the gaze of young men, many of whom were less bent upon
learning than upon amusement."

However little she may realize it, every girl who rides her
steel horse is a vivid illustration of one of the greatest
waves of progress of this century, the advancement of women
in freedom and opportunity.

A wise physician once said that the opinion that a good
woman should stay closely at home had killed more women than
any other one cause. In the days of our grandmothers the
suggestion of regular gymnastic training or athletics for
girls would have been received with horror. It was hardly
proper for a woman to have any knowledge of the construction
of her physical system.

It is a curious historical fact that the first women
lecturers upon physiology were women's rights women, and
viewed by the majority of people as dangerous to female
modesty, while the Ladies' Physiological Institute in Boston
was at first much disapproved of by the clergy. So long,
too, as old-fashioned "stays" (laced up sometimes by the aid
of equally old-fashioned bed-posts) remained in vogue,
neither physiology nor athletics stood much chance with
women.

But the often derided dress reformer has had her way, to a
great extent. Bathing dresses, gymnastic and tennis suits
which would have frightened an eighteenth century dame into
one of her favorite fainting fits.

Meanwhile the girls have mounted their bicycles. Bless you,
my children; what endless vistas of good times are before
you! What glorious landscape views and ocean moonrises, what
freedom, what fresh, airy delight in young life and
strength!

Already one young doctor has departed with his bride on a
wedding tour to Texas, each upon a bicycle. Other strange
affairs will no doubt take place. By and by the bishops will
see no more irreverence in bidding Godspeed to girls
starting on a journey to California upon bicycles than to
girls departing to Europe on a steamship.

Another encouraging sign of the times is the increasing demand on the great and fashionable house of Liberty & Co., of London, for the Greek and other simple costumes by fashionable ladies, who are using them largely for home wear. I have reproduced two recent styles of dresses made by Liberty. All fabrics used are rich, soft, and elegant, and the effect is said to be gratifying to lovers of art, as well as far more healthful and comfortable than the conventional dress. The most important fact, however, is the effect or influence which is sure to follow this breaking away from the ruling fashions in wealthy circles. When conventionalism in dress is fully discredited, practical reform is certain to follow. The knell of the one means the triumph of the other.

Believing as I do that the cycle of woman has dawned, and that through her humanity will reach a higher and nobler civilization than the world has yet known, I feel the most profound interest in all that affects her health, comfort, and happiness; for as I have before observed, her exaltation means the elevation of the race. A broader liberty and more liberal meed of justice for her mean a higher civilization, and the solution of weighty and fundamental problems which will never be equitably adjusted until we have brought into political and social life more of the splendid spirit of altruism, which is one of her most conspicuous characteristics. I believe that morality, education, practical reform, and enduring progress wait upon her complete emancipation from the bondage of fashion, prejudice, superstition, and conservatism.

UN-AMERICAN TENDENCIES.

BY REV. CARLOS MARTYN, D. D.

The monarchial conception is that a few are born booted and spurred to ride, and that the many are born saddled and bridled to be ridden. The republican theory is that "Everybody is cleverer than anybody," to quote the epigram attributed to Talleyrand; and that government, in Lincoln's phrase, should be "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

The United States is the only nation in history which has dared to base itself upon an absolute trust in the people.

There have been republics (so-called) _ad infinitum_ and _ad nauseam_. "Greece," cries one of the foremost of our orators, "had her republics, but they were the republics of one freeman and ten slaves; and the battle of Marathon was fought by slaves unchained from the doorposts of their master's houses. Italy had her republics; they were the republics of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. Holland had her republic, the republic of guilds and landholders, trusting the helm of state to property and education. The Swiss republics were groups of cousins. And all these which, at their best, held but a million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in the ocean of time."

The Spanish-American Republics are nondescripts. They owe their existence to _pronunciamientos_. They are the puppets of successful soldiers, and are administered by generals who follow one another like the ghosts that walked in the vision of "Richard Third," and do not hold office long enough to be photographed. They are based on mongrel races, steeped in ignorance, cramped by superstition, and physically rotten before they get ripe.

Our fathers built a commonwealth on the foundation of manhood. They recognized no other qualification, save for a period of inconsistency, _color_; which, happily, is now wiped out of the fundamental law, though not entirely out of popular prejudice.

The faith in the people which Jefferson, Sam Adams, and the men of '76 cherished as the distinctive tenet of their political creed, has been justified by results. Their gigantic creation launches into the second decade of its second century, belted with power, aggrandized with _El Dorados_, the amazement of the world, the "Arabian Nights" translated into every-day reality.

Unfortunately, however, in the face of this unprecedented record of prosperity, certain un-republican tendencies begin to exhibit themselves among us. These may well give thoughtful patriots startled concern.

Half a century ago, before time had been annihilated by the telegraph, and distance abolished by steam, nations were comparatively isolated; and the American most of all. Europe was three thousand miles away. Now-a-days, the old world is next-door neighbor to the new. Saint John's apocalyptic vision is realized; there is "no more sea." It is bridged by steamers, and flashed out of existence by the electric cable. What is the consequence? The consequence is that while Europe borrows many of our ideas, America borrows more of hers. With the increase of travel, the growth of wealth, the enlargement of our leisurely class, there is an aping of English and German habits of thought and modes of life which are utterly repugnant to republican institutions. While Europe should seem to be almost ready to discard baby-house distinctions and the embroidered rags of aristocracy, America, strange to say, appears willing to put on and wear the disreputable finery. We are becoming disagreeably familiar with what Mr. Gladstone characterizes in an inspired phrase, as the _classes_ in contrast with the _masses_.

This interchange of national customs comes inevitably from the facilitated intercourse of our day, from the intimacy begotten by inter-marriage, by commerce, by travel. But it is sad if we are to borrow more than we lend, and if the balance of trade is to be perpetually against us. We must find or invent a remedy if republicanism is to survive. The widespread alarm felt among our humbler citizens shows how real the danger is. Take, for instance, the growing distrust of universal suffrage manifested by our cultivated classes. Certain journals, the organs of wealth and monopoly; social-science conventions, composed of pert specialists poisoned by caste feeling; even pulpits, which should be the guardians and exponents of democracy,--cautiously, tentatively, but as positively as they dare, discuss the propriety of restraining the ballot, and sigh for a property or an educational qualification.

Now, if there be one feature of American republicanism which is supremely characteristic, it is universal suffrage. This interpenetrates our political system as veins run through a block of marble. The patriots and sages who framed our Constitution grouted it with this principle. They believed and declared that it was safe to trust men with self-government. They recognized, of course, the fact that in every community there would be an element of ignorance and inefficiency. But by putting the ballot in every hand they deliberately took bonds of wealth and culture to enlighten this ignorance and train this inefficiency. They enlisted the self-interest of the Commonwealth on the side of popular education. They said, practically, to the well-to-do and to those who had interests at stake: See to it, if you would save your possessions, that you share them with the poorest and the lowest, at least to the extent of lifting them to the level of self-control and self-respect. In fact, this is the meaning of our free schools, of trial by jury, and of the ballot-box. Tocqueville, whose insight into republican institutions was marvellous, distinctly traces our prosperity, in his survey of American democracy, to universal suffrage, with all that it necessitates. So on the other side of the water, when, in 1867, Parliament doubled the English franchise, Robert Lowe leaped to his feet and cried, amid the cheers of the House of Commons: "_Now_ the first interest and duty of every Englishman is to educate the masses." Previously, if the Court of St. James stooped to put intelligence on one side and morality on the other side of the cradle rocked by poverty and vice, it was pity that dictated the gracious act. Now it is self-preservation. Who does not know how much stronger self-interest is than pity as a motive? Who cannot see the far-sighted wisdom of our fathers in thus ingrafting this powerful motive upon the fundamental law?

Moreover, universal suffrage is educational in itself. Responsibility educates. Nothing else does. By throwing the responsibility upon the people they are necessarily lifted, sobered, broadened. Our women do not vote. What is the result? Not one woman in a thousand has any interest in, and not one in two thousand has any acquaintance with, political affairs. Their ignorance would be laughable were it not sad. Every father, husband, brother, can testify to the impenetrable ignorance of his feminine belongings concerning matters of public moment. It forms the topic of universal comment in male circles. It is not because women are naturally incapable. It is because having no responsibility they naturally have no interest. Why should a woman inform herself of what does not concern her? Occasionally, some woman, exceptionally placed, or born with a genius for politics, studies and masters state-craft. But exceptions do not invalidate, they prove rules. Women, like men, cannot be expected to take any intelligent interest in affairs that lie outside of their life.

Our men, on the contrary, are politicians down to the infant in the cradle. A boy baby cries, "Mr. Chairman!" as soon as he can talk, and calls the next crib to order. Men know that the maturing of politics, the selection of administrations, the distribution of offices, the adjustment of taxes, are their function. This knowledge whets the edge of interest. The significant fact is that it is not the people who are indifferent to politics. This indifference is found among merchants who are too busy making money to attend to the public weal; among scholars buried alive in their books, with no interest in any question that is not musty; among men of leisure, aping old world aristocracy, and out of touch with democracy; among those who _say_ that all men are equal and are afraid they _will_ be,--never among the people.

The plainer men are the greater is their political interest. Our naturalized citizens, shut out in their native land from all participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here, are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a normal school, the people's college.

It is often said that, judged by its power to govern great cities, universal suffrage is a failure. This is true. The failure, however, is due to local causes. It does not come from the inherent incapacity of the masses, but is the spawn of accidental and removable evils. Chief among these is the corner grog-shop. This is the blazing lighthouse of hell. Here it is that morals and manners are debauched. It is over this counter that what an old poet calls "liquid damnation" is dealt out. If the _quid-nuncs_, instead of railing at universal suffrage, would combine to help shut that door, republicanism would speedily lose its reproach. The constituency of the grog seller is the ready made tool of the demagogue. A true democracy can only exist on the basis of sobriety. A drunken people cannot be trusted with the dearest rights and most vital possessions of freemen. Better the merciless tyranny of the Czar, or the military despotism of the Kaiser, far better the class rule of England, than the staggering, hiccoughing, bedevilled government of the groggery!

Aside from the great centres of population, the common people are more trustworthy than the corporations, the colleges, or the newspapers. The selfishness, the preoccupation, the anti-republicanism of these, are proverbial. We know that editors are echoes, not leaders, printing what will sell, not what is true. Landor declared that there is a spice of the scoundrel in most literary men. Everybody understands that a corporation's gospel is a good fat dividend. Who would exchange universal suffrage for college suffrage, or corporation suffrage, or newspaper suffrage?

Our danger to-day does not lie in universal suffrage. It lies in the steady encroachments of wealth, in the multiplication of monopolies, in the too rapid growth of fungus millionnaires, in the increasing number of well educated idlers, in the sinister prominence of the saloon in politics, in the tendency of the country to submit to bureaucracy, in the transformation of the national Senate into a club of rich men, housed and fed at the national expense, in the change of the House of Representatives into a huddle of clerks to register the decrees of greedy capital, in the chronic distrust of the people felt among book-educated and professional men; in one word, in the appalling gravitation towards government by "boodle" in the hands of unscrupulous minorities.

The only hope of deliverance lies in the people,--in their honesty, fair play, and decision, No; it is not universal suffrage that has brought disgrace on the country. If the rancor of party spirit, if the dry-rot of legislative corruption, if the tyranny of incorporated wealth, if the diabolism of intemperance are to be curbed, it is universal suffrage which must hold the reins. Talk of taking the ballot out of the hand of the poor citizen! As well fling the revolver out of window when the burglar is in the house. One of the keenest critics of American life has said: "Corruption does not so much rot the masses; it poisons Congress. Credit mobilier and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs; they flaunt at the capital." The real scum is the so-called better class. If anybody is to be deprived of a vote, it should be the railroad king, the mill owner, the indifferent trader, and the Europeanized Yankee who spends abroad what his father earned at home, and mistakes Paris for Paradise.

As another illustration of the un-republican trend, observe the obsequious attitude of our government towards monarchs and monarchies. We are to-day cheek by jowl with the despots of Europe. Instead of being the torch bearer of freedom we occupy a position of apology for what we are and of gaping admiration for what they are. When an opportunity offered the other day to recognize the new Republic of Brazil, the toadies at Washington equivocated and postponed. One would suppose that the disappearance of the last monarchy from the new world would have been greeted in the great Republic with the ringing of bells and the blaze of bonfires--would have been answered by a regular Fourth of July outburst. Bless you, no! The Czar was displeased. The Emperor of Germany was in the sulks. Queen Victoria put on mourning. Why should the Dons at Washington be out of fashion?

On the other hand, when Carlos I. was crowned at Lisbon last December, the American Squadron of Evolution was in the harbor, and behold! the officers of the Republic's war-ships paraded side by side with the other flunkies of royalty in honor of the coronation--thus showing that they belonged to the Squadron of Reaction. For so misrepresenting their country they ought to be cashiered. Republicans refusing to recognize a new republic, but hastening to recognize a new king! What a spectacle! Spirits of Otis and Franklin, of Jefferson and Hamilton, what think ye of such democracy as this?

No one would have the United States play the role of a bully, or enact the demagogue. But surely there is a medium between that and the despicable inconsistency of unfriendliness towards those of our own political faith, and of lackey serviceableness towards a crowned head. Kings do not hesitate to discourage republicanism everywhere. A republic should not hesitate to encourage it anywhere. Self-respect in such a matter would win the respect of the world by deserving it. But when Americans sell their daughters to European profligates for a title, and pay millions to boot; when republicans in profession become tuft-hunters in practice, and haunt the back stairs of palaces; when the United States government, the eldest born and guardian of democracy, decredits its own political creed and parades in royal processions,--is it not time to cry a halt?