350 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
reform their dress ; but it is a question in morals, as to whether 
we ought to support, on the ground of fashion, a mode of 
dressing which, in this country alone, immolates, every five 
years as large a number of women as perished in the heart- 
rending catastrophe of Santiago. 
It should, however, be remembered that extent of dress 
alone is not the only cause of these accidents. The nature 
of the materials of which women's dresses are composed is 
greatly conducive to the production of accidents by fire. 
Cotton and linen are eminently combustible materials, and as 
long as the boy is dressed in his Holland pinafore and his 
calico frock he is as much in danger of being burnt as his 
little sister. But directly he gets into breeches his chances of 
being burned diminish, as much on account of the form as the 
nature of the material he wears. 
If it must be denied to our girls and women to wear either 
the form or the material of the dress of boys, there is one thing 
left that we can do. Chemistry has put into our possession 
a variety of compounds, soluble in water, which if applied to 
linen and cotton will render them flame-proof, if not un- 
inflammable. Such compounds are, tungstate of soda, sulphate 
of ammonia, sulphate of zinc, sal-ammoniac, alum, and com- 
mon salt. Any of these substances may be put into the starch 
with which cotton and linen goods are got up after they are 
manufactured and washed. Starches have been patented with 
these substances in them, and druggists sell the salts, with 
directions for use ; but up to the present moment little or no 
effect has been produced. Every now and then the news- 
papers startle the community with the fact that another 
mother of a family has been burned by crinoline. Society 
duly observes, regrets, and forgets the circum stance. Some 
effect might perhaps be made if each daily newspaper could 
record, as it occurred, the deaths of the women that die every 
day victims to burning. If the children and men were added 
to this portion of the eight who die, it might increase the 
anxiety of society on the point. But it should be recollected 
that there must be added to this the sufferings of those who do 
not die. Where one burned person dies, ten get well, amid 
the greatest suffering and the most acute of agonies. Are not 
these sufferings, and this death, worthy of an effort to save ? 
I must now, however, leave the whole subject of dress to 
the consideration of thoughtful persons. I have been prompted 
to make these remarks in the hope that I may assist any who 
may seriously think it worth their while to make an effort to 
rescue the art of dressing from the domain of Fashion, and 
place it under the laws and direction of Reason. 
