July 27, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



55 



the dress which best adapts itself to the form and require- 

 ments of that frame has the best right to be considered 

 artistic. The mind of man has discovered for himself a 

 dress which, I hold, fulfils both these requisites. It remains 

 to be seen whether the mind of woman is equal to the 

 task of devising a similar one for herself." — Letter hy 

 Clavnriny Mesnard, in Knowledge of June 29. 



" Women now will have to be content to wait before art 

 (in dress) in any true sense of the term can be theirs. 

 Tiiey have so distorted and disguised nature that art for 

 the present is impossible. We must wait and gain a 

 correct and right appreciation of nature before we can have 

 any true art. Before we attempt to decorate, let us have 

 some veneration for the divine temple of our bodies which 

 now, while ignorantly seeking to adorn, we only desecrate. 

 And while we are waiting and learning this great lesson, a 

 truer beauty will arise compatible with use and fitness, and 

 women become reformed not in dress only but in mind and 

 character." — PanqMet hy E. J/. King. 



" Men are very near towards gaining beauty and grace 

 in their dress, they having already secured, in a very great 

 degree, the more essential requisites of comfort and con- 

 venience. Women, on the contrary, having sought only 

 beauty and grace in their dress, and neglected the essentials 

 of comfort and convenience, have, in reality, failed to 

 secure either. Men's dress is only negatively ugly, but 

 women's dress is positively ugly. It is not only ugly in 

 itself, but it insists upon making the body which it covers 

 ugly — that is, deformed. But, unfortunately, our eyes are 

 holden that we cannot perceive this ugliness, custom having 

 long familiarised our sight to it, and because it has been 

 disguised by always being decked out in beautiful colours, 

 to which it has no claim. And so it is that, for men's 

 dress to conform to right principles, very little alteration is 

 required ; while, for women's dress to be made to answer 

 to them, such a wide measure of reform is called for that it 

 amounts almost to a revolution." — Lecture hy the same. 



These four passages agree on the following points : — 

 That the foundation or basis of beauty in any useful art 

 must be utility or fitness. That the source of beauty in 

 art lies in the study and appreciation of Nature. That 

 dress, being one of the useful arts, must have its basis in 

 use and fitness ; and its beauty, growing out of this as out 

 of a stem, must be derived from a correct appreciation of 

 the liuman form. That the dress which answers to the 

 requirements of the body, and best adapts itself to the 

 form, is at once the most useful and the most beautiful 

 dress. That men's dress, being closely adapted to the 

 form of the body and its requirements, is the most 

 beautiful. That women's dress, as having little regard 

 to use or fitness, and not adapted to the form of 

 the body, does not possess beauty. That Fashion, 

 which in women has usurped the throne of Reason, 

 can never give us a dress at once useful and beautiful. 

 That if the mind of woman is ever to become equal to the 

 task of devising for herself a dress adapted to the form of 

 her body and its requirements, she must dethrone the 

 usurper Fashion which has implanted in her mind a morbid 

 desire for change and juggled her out of tlu; most comely 

 graces of nature and of its most healthful proprieties, and 

 must substitute for it the guidance of Reason and right 

 principles. That the change required in womcn'.s minds, 

 feelings, and habits, in order to substitute the guidance of 

 reason for that of fashion, is so great as to amount almost 

 to a revolution. 



I have here endeavoured to put together the opinions of 

 two men writers with those of my own, to show how far 

 these agree with mine, and also to show that if these 



are correct, nothing short of a revolution can effect the 

 change we desire. 



The change from the external despotism of fashion to 

 that of self government of reason and right principles, is a 

 revolution. 



The change from unfitness and ugliness to suitableness 

 and beauty is a revolution. To eflFect this twofold revolu- 

 tion the inward or mental, and the outward or practical 

 must work together hand in hand or both remain abortive. 

 To call in the despot Fashion to introduce a change, how- 

 ever practically beneficial, is useless. To believe in and 

 subscribe to right principles without power or courage to 

 carry them into practice is also useless. 



In order to form a basis of mental self-government in 

 dress, I have drawn up the following principles or require- 

 ments of a perfect dress. They may or may not be en- 

 tirely feasible ; they may or may not be altogether correct ; 

 they may be insufficient, or they may be redundant ; but 

 they are an attempt to dethrone the usurper Fashion, and 

 to raise in its stead the guidance of reason. The require- 

 ments of a perfect dress are : 1. Freedom of movement. 

 2. Absence of pressure over any part of the body. 3. No 

 more weight than is necessary for warmth, and both 

 warmth and weight equally distributed. 4. Grace and 

 beauty combined with comfort and convenience. 



But it has before been proved that dress, to be both 

 useful and beautiful, must be adapted to the form of the 

 body and to its requirements ; therefore, in practically 

 carrying out the foregoing principles, clothing must follow, 

 and drapery not contradict, the natural lines of the body. 

 In efTecting any radical change we must be careful so to 

 bring it about as not to put ourselves, or to induce others 

 to put themselves, too much out of harmony with our or 

 their surroundings. 



This brings me to my fifth requirement, upon which I 

 specially desired to write, which is that it must (5) not 

 depart from the ordinary dress of the time. I found it, 

 however, impossible satisfactorily to discuss this point until 

 I had clearly marked out the road we have to follow. 



It may be doubted whether " the mind of man " had 

 very much to do in bringing about the change in men's 

 dress from a highly-decorated one to an extremely and, I 

 may say, an over-plain one. It is more likely to have 

 been produced by men's love of comfort and a sort of 

 can't-be-bothered feeling, rather than by any conscious 

 mental efibrt. 



The task which women have before them is a far harder 

 one than that which men had to encounter, because we 

 have to work up through the prejudices and conventional 

 ideas of the other sex as well as our own, and to do battle 

 with the accumulated power and influence of various 

 trades — an influence which seems to extend every year ; 

 for now the tailors have got hold of us as well as dress- 

 makers, drapers, and manufacturers, all ready to rack or 

 wreck our bodies and souls so that they may but fill their 

 own purses ; while the unreasoning and illogical male 

 multitude tacitly b.ack them up, looking on us as, in a 

 measure, fair game, as a sort of corpus: vile, which it does 

 not much matter if fashion works its deforming and 

 degrading experiments upon, because, forsooth, " spending 

 is good for trade." 



(To be continued.) 



Gold Puoduction in Russi.v. — According to a report 

 drawn up by Mr. Irvanow, the production of gold in 

 Russia during the year 1882 amounted to 57 million 

 roubles (SI millions sterling). Russia thus stands next to 

 North America, which produces annually about 9 millions 

 sterling, while Australia follows with 7 J, millions. 



