ON PROPER CLOTHING. 
349 
to tlie most horrible of deaths. This fashion of extended 
skirts has come in and gone out, from mere caprice. Our 
grandmothers wore hoops, and our mothers laughed at their 
folly ; but our sisters, wives, and daughters have revived the 
folly, with results more melancholy than any connected with 
the previous exhibitions of this fashion. 
I have not alluded in this paper to the inconveniences of 
dress, and I shall not, therefore, consider the present fashion 
of female dress on this ground. That our rooms have grown 
less — that our freedom of intercourse in the drawing-room is 
interrupted — that our vehicles are encumbered — that our 
places of worship will hold fewer — that our sick-rooms are 
unnecessarily swept, and our shins injured by steel hoops,- — 
are grievances that no one would think of referring to ; but 
when the question is one of life and death, then it seems 
necessary that the subject should be discussed. Are we 
justified in submitting to any fashion, which can be proved 
annually to sacrifice several hundreds of victims in our own 
country alone ? 
I will state a few facts. In one year — from the 1st of 
August, 1862, to the 31st of July, 1863 — forty-eight inquests 
were held on persons burned to death, in the central district 
of Middlesex, comprising nearly a million of people. Of these, 
thirteen were males, and thirty-five were females. Of the 
males, eight were under five years of age ; and of the females, 
nine were under that age. Of the whole, thirty- one were 
above five years of age. Now mark the influence of dress. 
Of the thirty-one who were burned over five years of age, 
there were three boys and two men; but there were eight 
girls and eighteen women. Above a third of the whole were 
women above twenty years of age. But the deaths from burning 
in this district of London are actually below the average deaths 
from this cause in the whole community ; and the Registrar - 
general's returns present us with the frightful fact, that eight 
persons are burned to death every day in England and Wales, 
and of these, above one-eighth are grown-up women. 
I cannot here give any facts to show whether the health 
of women has been improved by the introduction of the recent 
fashion of wearing extended dresses, but it is a most noto- 
rious fact that the more extended the dress the more likely 
it is to catch fire. Not only do I think it worthy the con- 
sideration of women how far they can divest themselves of the 
extent of skirt which endangers their lives, but I think it a 
question deserving their utmost consideration as to whether 
their dress is not altogether unfitted for a climate, where fires, 
and gas-lamps, and candles, are the necessary adjuncts of our 
civilization. It is all very well to talk sentiment about what 
is becoming to women, or to make fun of those who wish to 
