THE LITTLE HEALTH OF LADIES. 



361 



cy, seems to be gradually receding — from ordi- 

 nary dinners, where it was universal twenty years 

 ago, to special occasions, balls, and court draw- 

 ing-rooms. But it dies hard, and it may kill a 

 good many poor creatures yet, and entail on others 

 the life-long bad health so naturally resulting 

 from the exposure of a Targe surface of the skin 

 to sudden chills. 



The thin, paper-soled boots which leave the 

 wearer to feel the chill of the pavement or the 

 damp of the grass wherever she may walk, must 

 have shortened thousands of lives in Europe, and 

 even more in America. Combined with these, 

 we have now the high heels, which, in a short 

 period, convert the foot into a shapeless deformi- 

 ty, no longer available for purposes of healthful 

 exercise. An experienced shoemaker informed 

 the writer that, between the results of tight boots 

 and high heels, he scarcely knew a lady of fifty 

 who had what he could call a foot at all — they had 

 mere clubs. And this is done, all this anguish 

 endured, for the sake of — beauty! 



Bad as stays, and chignons, and high heels, 

 and paint, and low dresses, and all the other fol- 

 lies of dress are, I am, however, of opinion that 

 the culminating folly of fashion, the one which 

 has most wide-spread and durable consequences, 

 is the mode in which for ages back women have 

 contrived that their skirts should act as drags 

 and swaddling-clothes, weighing down their hips 

 and obstructing the natural motion of the legs. 

 Two hundred years ago the immortal Perrette, 

 when she wanted to carry her milk-pail swiftly to 

 market, was obliged to dress specially for the 

 purpose : 



"Legere et court vetue, elle allait a grands pas, 

 Ayant mis ce jour-la, pour etre plus agile, 

 Cotillon simple et souliers plats." 



From that time to this the " cotillon simple " — 

 modest, graceful, and rational — has been the rare 

 exception, and every kind of flounce and furbe- 

 low, hoops and crinolines, panniers and trains, 

 " tied-back " costume, and robe collante, has been 

 successively the bane of women's lives, and the 

 slow destroyer of their activity. 



It has been often remarked that the sagacity 

 of Romish seminarists is exhibited by their prac- 

 tice of compelling boys destined for the priest- 

 hood to flounder along the streets in their long 

 gowns, and never permitting them to cast them 

 aside or play in the close-fitting clothes wherein 

 English lads enjoy their cricket and foot-ball. 

 The obstruction to free action, though perhaps 

 slight in itself, yet constantly maintained, gradu- 

 ally tames down the wildest spirits to the level 



of ecclesiastical decorum. But the lengthiest of 

 soutanes is a joke compared to the multitudinous 

 petticoats which, up to the last year or two, 

 every lady was compelled to wear, swathing and 

 flowing about her ankles as if she were walking 

 through the sea. Nor is the fashion of these 

 later days much better, when the scantier dress 

 is "tied back " — as I am informed — with an elas- 

 tic band, much on the principle that a horse is 

 " hobbled " in the field ; and to this a tail a yard 

 long is added, which must either be left to drag- 

 gle in the mud or must occupy an arm exclusive- 

 ly to hold it up. In youth these skirts are bad 

 enough, as exercising a constant check on free 

 and healthful movement ; but the moment that 

 the elastic steps begin to give place to the lassi- 

 tude of middle life, the case is desperate. There 

 is no longer energy to overcome the impediments 

 created by the ridiculous spancels, and the poor 

 donkey of a woman hobbles daily round a shorter 

 and shorter course, till at forty or fifty she tells 

 her friends with a sigh that she finds (she cannot 

 imagine why) that she cannot walk at all ! 



Does decency require such a sacrifice as this ? 

 Does the utmost strain of feminine modesty ask 

 for it ? If it were so, I, for one, should leave the 

 matter with a sigh, as not to be remedied. But 

 who in his senses dreams that such is the case ? 

 Who, in the age of robes collantes and decolletee 

 dresses, can pretend that a reasonably full, sim- 

 ply-cut silk or cloth skirt, reaching to the ankles 

 and no longer, would not fulfill immeasurably 

 better than any fashion we have seen for many a 

 day the requirements of true womanly delicacy? 

 It is for fashion, not decency, that the activity 

 of women is thus crushed, their health ruined, 

 and (through them) the health of their children. 

 I hold it to be an indubitable fact that if twenty 

 years ago a rational and modest style of dress 

 had been adopted by Englishwomen and encour- 

 aged by Englishmen, instead of being sneered 

 down by fops and fools, the health not only of 

 women, but of the sons of women, i. e., of the 

 entire nation, would now be on altogether a dif- 

 ferent plane from what we find it. 1 



1 The inquiry, " How fashions originate and with 

 whom?' 1 ' 1 would lead us too far from the subject in 

 hand, but some light is thrown on the way in which 

 complicated arrangements of dress are maintained 

 under every variation and in defiance of the true prin- 

 ciples of taste, as well as of health and economy, by 

 the reflection that it would never pay drapers and 

 dress-makers that their customers should readily cal- 

 culate how much stuff they require for each garment. 

 For further criticism of the follies of female dress — 

 the torrid and frigid zones of body and limbs — the 

 "panniers" or "bustles" creating kidney-disease; 



