During this period the ingenuity of man came to woman's rescue, by the invention of an interesting, and, judging by its popularity, exceedingly serviceable contrivance known as a dress elevator, which enabled ladies to instantly elevate their enormous trains when they came to a particularly muddy and filthy crossing. Return to text

It was in the midst of the period of the tie-backs that Harper's Bazar published two striking cartoons illustrating the poem given below. One represented a poor man's wife, "The slave of toil," and was pathetically powerful in its fidelity to truth; the other, drawn by the powerful Nast, represented a society lady of the day attired in the reigning tie-back, measuring at the hips a little more than double the width a short distance below the knees. This slave was chained to fashion's column.

SISTER SLAVES.

I have reproduced the admirable cuts found in Dr. Trall's physiology, as they were essential to the understanding of the text quoted, and also because they convey more vividly than words the injury necessarily sustained by those who persist in outraging nature and violating the laws of their being by improper dress. Return to text

In discussing the solemn duty mothers owe to their offspring, Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller sensibly observes:—

Are women ignorant of the mischief they do to their offspring, or are they indifferent to consequences? Has the true maternal love become extinct, in this age of advanced civilization, that women ignore all the laws of nature while anticipating the glory of motherhood? We know not; yet we often see what causes a thrill of pity in our soul for the future of the child yet unborn: a mother laced within stiff bones and steel, while the very instincts of being cry out against the sin of it. Surely every child has a right to be well born! Wealth may be a grand inheritance, but health is a better one, as any poor suffering creature will testify, whose misery the most expensive doctors have been called upon to alleviate without avail. And how can a child be well born unless its parents observe the laws of life bearing upon the birth and rearing of children? It is impossible. If a mother will so clothe herself that the vitality which properly belongs to her baby becomes exhausted and destroyed, the child is robbed, as a natural consequence, and perhaps the weakened, puny, distorted, fretful little creature, who is innocent of the cause of its own sufferings, will live to become a curse to the world instead of the blessing that it would have been had rational conditions been observed before its birth.

Tight corsets grudgingly loosened a quarter of an inch at a time, heavy skirts, and all the evil conditions we are so familiar with, are still retained as the months pass, bringing ever nearer what should be the very happiest hour of woman's existence—that in which she is to be intrusted with the keeping, training, and guidance of a new human soul. Perhaps her baby comes into the world dead or deformed, perhaps deprived of certain of its faculties; or it may be that it possesses life and all of its special senses and organs in such a diminished degree that the whole of its future becomes a pain rather than a joy, while its miserable, puny structure remains a lasting reproach to its parents as long as they live. Return to text

In speaking of this practical dress reform on the part of the belles of New York, the Boston Daily Globe recently observed editorially: The great question now agitating the fashionable women of Fifth Avenue is: "Do you wear knickerbockers?"

Stripped of all apologetic circumlocution, "knickerbockers" are simply loose, easy trousers, above which is worn a becoming blouse waist, and thus attired, the belles of New York come down to breakfast. Nor are the trousers subsequently removed while the ladies are about the house, unless some conservative caller is announced, when a stylish tea-gown can be jumped into in a second, and the lady is in faultless female costume.

That women should be handicapped in their locomotion in their own homes is simply a relic of oriental slavery and prudery, and the revolt against it is sensible and wholesome. That they have come to stay is evident, while improved costumes for shop girls, and other women engaged in business every day in the year, are certain to follow in the order of progress.—Boston Globe.

It might be well also for the council to recommend the formation of societies in each community where social or society gatherings of those interested might be held at stated intervals, at which all members would appear in dresses made with special regard to health, comfort, and beauty, and in which all garments would conform to the general ideal recommended by the council. Return to text

As the paper is being set up my attention has been attracted to a remarkably sensible signed editorial in the Boston Sunday Globe, of July 26, by the brilliant writer and sensible thinker, Adelaide A. Claftin, from which I extract the following:

Bishop Coxe's fulmination against the riding of bicycles by women has attracted considerable attention, but to the student of social movements it is not strange that Bishop Coxe should object. The real oddity is that scarcely anybody else, apparently, has objected.

That young girls from the best families should within a short time have betaken themselves to whirling through the public thoroughfares, like so many boys, is certainly a new departure from all old fashioned canons of feminine decorum, at least as startling as many that have brought down all sorts of thunderbolts from pulpit and press. Had it been a prerequisite that an amendment to the United States Constitution, or even a statute of a State Legislature should be obtained, the girls would doubtless have had to wait many a weary year.

It is not long since another church dignitary, Dr. Morgan Dix, objected to the entrance of girls into universities, because it was not "proper for young women to be exposed to the gaze of young men, many of whom were less bent upon learning than upon amusement."

However little she may realize it, every girl who rides her steel horse is a vivid illustration of one of the greatest waves of progress of this century, the advancement of women in freedom and opportunity.

A wise physician once said that the opinion that a good woman should stay closely at home had killed more women than any other one cause. In the days of our grandmothers the suggestion of regular gymnastic training or athletics for girls would have been received with horror. It was hardly proper for a woman to have any knowledge of the construction of her physical system.

It is a curious historical fact that the first women lecturers upon physiology were women's rights women, and viewed by the majority of people as dangerous to female modesty, while the Ladies' Physiological Institute in Boston was at first much disapproved of by the clergy. So long, too, as old-fashioned "stays" (laced up sometimes by the aid of equally old-fashioned bed-posts) remained in vogue, neither physiology nor athletics stood much chance with women.

But the often derided dress reformer has had her way, to a great extent. Bathing dresses, gymnastic and tennis suits which would have frightened an eighteenth century dame into one of her favorite fainting fits.

Meanwhile the girls have mounted their bicycles. Bless you, my children; what endless vistas of good times are before you! What glorious landscape views and ocean moonrises, what freedom, what fresh, airy delight in young life and strength!

Already one young doctor has departed with his bride on a wedding tour to Texas, each upon a bicycle. Other strange affairs will no doubt take place. By and by the bishops will see no more irreverence in bidding Godspeed to girls starting on a journey to California upon bicycles than to girls departing to Europe on a steamship. Return to text

Lecky's History of England, Vol. V., p. 301. Return to text

Peschel's, "The Races of Man," p. 163. Return to text

"His Principle of Sociology," Vol. II., p. 209. Return to text

There was another agitation in Korea in 1882, but this was a mere uprising of the mob against the Japanese staying in that country, and not of grave political importance. For the details of both these events, the reader is referred to "A Korean Coup D' Etat," an entertaining article by Perceval Lowell, Atlantic Monthly, November, 1886. This poverty-stricken country, with an imbecile sovereign at the helm of state, and with no organized array, is practically under the control of the Chinese government, though nominally she is independent. Some European powers, who seem to consider that the greatness of a nation is commensurate with its success in its territorial aggrandizement are casting eyes at her, in vain let us hope, for the sake of Korea. While the influence of China is so predominant, she cannot accomplish much. A coup d' État might be needed a few times more, before she can become an independent nation in the fullest sense of the words. At any rate, her prospect is dubious enough at present. Return to text

About 4,179,559 sq. miles.—The Statesman's Yearbook, 1891. Return to text

About 404,180,000.—Ibid. Return to text

Spencer's "Principle of Sociology," Vol. II., pp. 436-458. Return to text

Ibid, pp. 459-472. Return to text

New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. Bryce's The American Commonwealth, Vol. I., p. 32. Return to text

His Representative Government, pp. 85, 86. Return to text

His Essay on Milton. Return to text

His Democracy in America, Vol. I., p. 2. Return to text

His Popular Government, pp. 70-74. Return to text

Ibid, pp. 17, 18. Return to text

Literally, "The Deliverative Assembly of the Empire," being the comprehensive name for the two legislative chambers of Japan, corresponding to Parliament of England or Congress of the United States. Return to text

"The New Type of Oppression," in "Essays: Religious, Social, Political." Lee & Shepard, Boston. Return to text