360 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



have been spent on this futile object ? The an- 

 swer is one which it is not pleasant to make, dis- 

 creditable as it is to both sexes. The women 

 who set the fashions dress for admiration ; and 

 men like women who dress to be admired ; and 

 the admiration given and received is a very poor 

 and unworthy admiration, not much better than 

 a salmon gives to a glittering artificial fly, and hav- 

 ing very little more to do with any real aesthetic 

 gratification — as is proved too clearly by the 

 thoroughly un-beautiful devices to which fashion 

 has recourse. It is the well-got-ttp woman (to 

 borrow a very expressive phrase), not the really 

 well-dressed woman, who receives by far the 

 largest share of homage. 



And now let us see how all this concerns the 

 health of women — how much of their petite sante 

 is due to their general neglect to make health the 

 first object of dress, or even an object at all com- 

 pared to fashion. 



Tight-lacing among habits resembles envy 

 among the passions. We take pride in all the 

 rest, even the idlest and worst, but tight-lacing 

 and an envious heart are things to which no one 

 ever confesses. A small waist, I suppose, is un- 

 derstood to belong to that order of virtues which 

 Aristotle decides ought to be natural and not ac- 

 quired, and the most miserable girl who spends 

 her days in a machine more cruel (because more 

 slowly murderous) than the old " Maiden " of Se- 

 ville, yet always assures us, smiling through her 

 martyrdom, that her clothes are " really hanging 

 about her ! " It would be waste of time to dwell 

 on this supreme folly. Mrs. Haweis, in her very 

 noteworthy new book, " The Art of Beauty," has 

 given some exceedingly useful diagrams, showing 

 the effects of the practice on the internal organs 

 and skeleton 1 — diagrams which I earnestly recom- 



1 Pp. 49 and 50. The preceding pages on what I 

 conceive to be the raisons d'etre of dress were written 

 before I had seen this exceedingly clever, brilliant, 

 and learned little book. While giving the authoress 

 thanks for her most sensible reprobation of many 

 senseless fashions, and not presuming for a moment 

 to question her judgment in the matters of taste, on 

 which she speaks with authority, I must here enter 

 my humble but earnest protest against the over-im- 

 portance which, I think, she is inclined to attach to 

 the art of dress, among the pursuits of women ; and 

 (most emphatically) against her readiness to condone 

 —if it be only committed in moderation— the offense 

 against both truth and cleanliness of wearing false 

 \\a.\r (see page 173). It seems to me quite clear that 

 hare the whole principle of honesty in attire is sacri- 

 ficed. If no woman would wish it to be known that 

 the hair on her head never grew there, but on the 

 scalp of some poor French girl, so poor as to be 

 bribed to part with it, or some unkempt Russian peas- 



mend to the study of ladies who may feel a " call " 

 to perform this sort of English suttee for a living 

 husband. Mrs. Haweis says that sensible men do 

 not love wasps, and have expressed to her their 

 " overallishness " when they behold them. Con- 

 sidering how effectively they have hitherto man- 

 aged to display their disapproval whenever women 

 have attempted to introduce rational attire, it is 

 a pity, I think, that they do not "pronounce" a 

 little more distinctly against this literally mortal 

 folly. 



I have already alluded to the brain-heating 

 chignons, just gone out of fashion after a long 

 reign of mischief; and along with them should be 

 classed the bonnets which expose the forehead to 

 the cold, while the back of the head is stewed 

 under its cushion of false hair, and which have 

 the still more serious disadvantage of affording no 

 shelter to the eyes. To women to whom the 

 glare of the sun is permanently hurtful to the 

 sight, the necessity of wearing these bonnets on 

 pain of appearing singular, or affectedly youthful, 

 constitutes almost a valid reason against living in 

 London. And the remedy, forsooth, is to hold 

 up perpetually a parasol ! — a yet further incum- 

 brance to add to the care of the draggling train, 

 so that both arms may be occupied during a whole 

 walk, and of course all natural ease of motion 

 rendered impossible. In this, as in a dozen other 

 silly fashions, the women who have serious con- 

 cerns in life are hampered by the practice of those 

 who think of nothing but exhibiting their persons ; 

 and ladies of limited fortune, who live in small 

 rooms and go about the streets on foot or in cabs, 

 are compelled (if they wish to avoid being pointed 

 at) to adopt modes of dress whose sole raison 

 d'etre is that they suit wealthy grandes dames who 

 lounge in their barouches or display their trains 

 over the carpets of forty-feet-long drawing-rooms. 

 What snobbery all this implies in our whole so- 

 cial structure ! Some ten millions of women dress, 

 as nearly as they can afford, in the style fit at the 

 most for five thousand ! 



The practice of wearing decolletee dresses, sin- 

 ning equally as it does against health and decen- 



ant who rarely used a comb in her life— then the wear- 

 ing of that false hair is an act of deception, and in so 

 far, I hold, both morally and even aesthetically wrong. 

 I cannot conceive why the lamp of truth, which we 

 are now perpetually told must shine on our architect- 

 ure and furniture, so that nothing must appear stone 

 that is iron, and so on ad infinitum, should not shine 

 equally lucidly over the dress of women. Where no 

 deception is meant, and where the object is to supply a 

 want, not to forge a claim to beauty— e.g., in the case 

 of artificial teeth— there is no harm involved. 



