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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Keviewing all these deplorable follies, we may 

 learn to make excuses for legislators who classi- 

 fy women with "criminals, lunatics, idiots, and 

 minors." It needs a woman's knowledge of the 

 pernicious processes to which the opening minds 

 of girls are commonly subjected — the false and 

 base aims in life set before them, the perverse 

 distribution toward them of approval and blame, 

 admiration and neglect, and even of love and dis- 

 like, from parents, teachers, servants, brothers, 

 and finally from the ballroom world into which 

 they are now launched m childhood — to enable 

 us to make allowances for them, and retain faith 

 that there sometimes beats a real woman's heart 

 under the ribs of a tightly-laced corset, and that 

 a head surmounted by a pile of dead women's 

 hair is not invariably devoid of brains. 



How is the remedy for this dreary round of 

 silly fashions ever to be attained ? No woman 

 who knows the world and how severe is the pen- 

 alty of eccentricity in attire, will ever counsel her 

 sisters to. incur it for any motive short of a dis- 

 tinct duty. But if the hundreds of ladies who 

 recognize the tyranny of senseless and unhealth- 

 ful fashions were to combine forces to obey those 

 fashions just as little as may be, to go as near the 

 wind in the direction of simplicity, wholesome- 

 ness, and ease in their dress, as they dare, there 

 would by degrees be formed a public opinion, 

 rising year by year with the numbers and social 

 standing of the representatives of common-sense. 

 It must have been in some such way that our 

 great-grandfathers dropped their swords and bag- 

 wigs and ruffles and embroidery, and took to 

 dressing — as even the silliest and vainest men do 

 in these days — like rational beings. 



Next to nnhealthful dress, women may lay 

 their petite sante at the door of their excessive 

 addiction to pursuits giving exercise neither to 

 the brain nor yet to the limbs. If the problem 

 had been set to devise something, the doing of 

 which would engage the very fewest and smallest 

 powers of the mind or body, I know not whether 

 we should give the prize for solving it to the in- 

 ventor of knitting, netting, crochet, or worsted- 

 work. Pursued for a reasonable period in the 

 day, these employments are no doubt quite harm- 

 less, and even perhaps, as some have urged, may 



the skewering clown of the arms by tight arm-holes ; 

 the veils which cause amaurosis, etc.— and also for 

 gome excellent suggestions of reform, see "Dress and 

 Health," a little book printed by Dougall & Son, Mon- 

 treal, to be obtained in London for the present only 

 by sending Is. (id. in stamps to B., 15 Belslze Square, 

 N.W. 



be useful as sedatives. But that a woman who is 

 driven by no dire necessity to "stitch, stitch, 

 stitch," who has plenty of books to read, and 

 two legs and feet to walk withal, should volun- 

 tarily limit the exercise of her body to the little 

 niggling motion of the fingers required by these 

 works, and the labor of her mind to counting 

 stitches, is all but incomprehensible. That the 

 consequences should be sickliness and feebleness 

 seems to follow of course. In old times the ever- 

 revolving spinning-wheel had its full justification 

 in its abundant usefulness, and also iu the dearth 

 of intellectual pursuits for women. But it is 

 marvelous that a well-educated Englishwoman, 

 not yet sinking into the natural indolence of age, 

 should choose to spend about a fifth or fourth of 

 the hours God has given her on this beautiful earth 

 in embroidery or worsted-work. A drawing-room 

 crammed with these useless fads — chairs, cush- 

 ions, screens, and antimacassars — is simply; a 

 mausoleum of the wasted hours of the female 

 part of the family. Happily, there is a sensible 

 diminution in this perpetual needling, and no 

 future Mrs. Somerville will be kept for the bi st 

 hours of her girlhood " shewing " her daily seam. 

 More intelligent and more active pursuits are 

 multiplying, and the great philanthropist who in- 

 vented lawn-tennis has done more to remedy the 

 little health of ladies than ten thousand doctors 

 together. 



We have now glanced over a number of 

 causes of petite saute, for which the sufferers 

 themselves are more or less responsible. Let us 

 turn to some others regarding which they are 

 merely passive. 



It is many years since, in my eaily youth, I 

 was struck by a singular coincidence. Several of 

 my married acquaintances were liable to a pecul- 

 iar sort of headache. They were obliged, owing 

 to these distressing attacks, to remain very fre- 

 quently in bed at breakfast-time, and later in the 

 day to lie on the sofa with darkened blinds and 

 a considerable exhibition of eau-de-Cologne. A 

 singular immunity from the seizures seemed to 

 be enjoyed when any pleasant society was ex- 

 pected, or when their husbands happened to be 

 in a different part of the country. By degrees, 

 putting my little observations together, I came in 

 my own mind to call these the " bad-husband 

 headaches," and I have since seen no reason to 

 alter my diagnosis. On the contrary, I am of 

 opinion that an incalculable amount of feminine 

 invalidism arises from nothing but the depressing 

 influences of an unhappy home. Sometimes, of 

 course, it is positive unkindness and cruelty 



