RAG-TAG AND BOB-TAIL FASHIONS
WHEN I say that the street-dress of the majority of respectable women of New York today is disgusting, I but feebly express my emotions. I say the respectable women, and yet, save to those who know them to be such, their appearance leaves a wide margin for doubt. The clown at a circus wears not a more stunning or parti-colored costume; in fact, his has the advantage of being sufficiently "taut," – to use a nautical phrase, – not to interfere with locomotion; while theirs – what with disgusting humps upon their backs, and big rosettes upon their sides and shoulders, and loops, and folds, and buttons, and tassels, and clasps, and bows upon their skirts, and striped satin petticoats, all too short to hide often clumsy ankles, – and more colors and shades of colors heaped upon one poor little fashion-ridden body than ever were gathered in one rainbow – and all this worn without regard to temperature, or time, or place – I say this presents a spectacle which is too disheartening even to be comical.
One cannot smile at the young girls who are, one day – Heaven help them! – to be wives and mothers. Wives and mothers! I say to myself, as I see the throat and neck with only the protection of a gold locket between itself and the cold autumnal winds. Wives and mothers! I say, as I see them ruining their feet and throwing their ankles out of shape, in the vain endeavor to walk on heels like corks, fastened far into the middle of the soles of their boots; and those boots so high upon the calf of the leg, and so tightly buttoned across it, that circulation is stopped, and violent headaches follow. Wives and mothers! I say, as I see the heating and burdensome panier tackled on the most delicate portion of a woman's frame, to make still surer confirmed invalidism. What fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers can be thinking about, to be willing that the women they respect and love, should appear in public, looking like women whom they despise, is a marvel to me. Why they do not say this to them, and shame them into a decent appearance – if their glasses cannot effect it – I do not know. Oh, the relief it is to meet a lady, instead of a ballet-girl! Oh, the relief it is to see a healthy, firm-stepping, rosy, broad-chested, bright-eyed woman, clad simply and free from bunches and tags! I turn to look at such an one with true respect, that she has the good sense and courage and good taste to appear on the street in a dress befitting the street; leaving to those poor wretched women whose business it is to advertise their persons, a free field without competition. If I seem to speak harshly, it is because I feel earnestly on this subject. I had hoped that the women of 1868 would have been worthy of the day in which they live. I had hoped that all their time would not have been spent in keeping up with the chameleon changes of fashions too ugly, too absurd for toleration. It is because I want them to be something, to do something higher and nobler than a peacock might aim at, that I turn heart-sick away from these infinitesimal fripperies that narrow the soul and purse, and leave nothing in their wake but emptiness. Nor is it necessary, in avoiding all this, that a woman should look "strong-minded," as the bugbear-phrase goes. It is not necessary she should dress like her grandmother, in order to look like a decent woman. It is not necessary she should forswear ornamentation, because it were better and more respectable to have it confined to festal and home occasions and less to the public promenade. She is not driven to the alternative of muffling herself like an omnibus driver in January, or catching consumption with her throat protected only by a gold locket!
Oh, how I wish that a bevy of young, handsome girls, of good social position, would inaugurate a plain lady-like costume for street and church wear. I say young and handsome, because if an old woman does this, the little chits toss their heads and say, "Oh! she has had her day, and don't care now – and we want ours."
Now that's perfectly natural, and right too, that you should have your youth; that you should, as girls say, "make the most of yourselves;" but in doing so don't you think it would be well not to lessen or cheapen yourselves? and I submit, with all deference to your dress-makers and mammas, that every one of you who appear in public in the manner I have described, are doing this very thing – are defiling womanhood, and are bringing it into derision and contempt, whether you believe it or not.
Blessed be sleep! We are all young then; we are all happy. Then our dead are living. Then, the flowers bloom, though the snow may at that moment be beating against our windows. Then, the ships that have been wrecked are gaily sailing on the seas. Then houses are built and furnished, and, above all, bills are paid. Then, editors have full subscription lists and clergymen big salaries, and scribblers plenty of ideas. Then, ladies have "something to wear," although they may not have it on. Then, Sammy has his coveted velocipede, and Susy her big doll, and Frank his boat, and Fanny a lover, and Grandpa has no rheumatism, and Grandma has not lost her spectacles. Blessed be sleep!
SOME HINTS TO EDITORS
WHAT a pity when editors review a woman's book, that they so often fall into the error of reviewing the woman instead. For instance, "she is young and attractive, and will probably before long find her legitimate sphere in matrimony; or she is an old maid – what can she know of life except through a distorted medium? Let her wait, if so she be able, till some man is deluded into inviting her to change her name. That appears to be her present need. Or she has the affectation of writing over a nom de plume– and must, perforce, be a fool. Or she did write a preface to her book; or she omitted writing a preface to her book, as one might expect of a woman. Or we hear she is a widow; and notoriety is probably her object in writing."
I introduced this article by saying what a pity that editors in reviewing a woman's book should so often only review the woman. Perhaps I should have said, what a pity all editors are not gentlemen. It is very easy to determine this question, if one keeps the general run of editorial articles. Not that it does not sometimes happen that, in the editor's necessary absence, some substitute may get him into "hot water;" or, as a foreigner who once tried to use this expression, called it "dirty water," – but taking the general tone of editorial articles, from one day or one week to another, the want of courtesy and self-respect, or the lack of it, are patent to the intelligent reader.
It is a pity that an editor should not be a gentleman, for his own sake, and because no position can be more honorable than his, if he choose to make it so, nor more influential for good or evil. Think of the multitude he addresses – the thinking men and women who pass his columns under critical review. Surely, this is a career not to be lightly esteemed, not to be slurred over bunglingly. Surely, this messenger crossing the sacred threshold of home, might well step carefully, reverentially, discreetly, and discuss fairly, justly, all topics especially connected with home duties and home responsibilities. Surely, his advertising list, if he have one, should be a clean one, such as any frank-browed, hitherto innocent young boy, might read. Surely, the maiden, whose horizon is not bounded by a strip of ribbon or silk, or even the marriage altar; should have the great questions of the day, relating to the future of her sex, not brushed aside with a contemptuous sniff, or treated with flippant ridicule, because this is the shortest and easiest way of disposing of that which requires thought and fair deliberation.
It seems so strange to me, who hold in such exalted estimation an editor's calling, that one should ever be found willing to belittle it; it is also a great comfort to know that there are those who hold this their position, for honor and interest second to none, and in this light conscientiously conduct their paper, so far as their strength and means allow.
This would be a very stupid world, I grant, if individuality were not allowed in the editorial chair as well as elsewhere; but leaving a wide margin for this, is there not still room in many newspapers for more justice, manliness, courtesy, and, above all, respectful mention of woman, even though the exigencies of her life may compel her to address the public.
There is a practice of certain penny-a-liners which cannot be too severely reprehended. We do not refer to their personal descriptions of public persons, male and female, which are often wholly false – they having mistaken some one else for the individual they wished to describe; and if certain of the identity, generally "doing" the description in the worst possible taste. All this is bad enough; but we refer now to cases where a forgery or a murder is committed. Not contented with working up these cases in all their harrowing and often disgusting details, your barren penny-a-liner, catching at the least straw of an idea to secure another penny for another line, states that the criminal in question is son of the Hon. Samuel So-and-so, nephew of Mr. So-and-so, a gentlemen well known in the fashionable world, and brother of the beautiful Miss Smith who was so much admired in society last winter. Now, to say that a man who would recklessly carry distress to innocent persons, already sufficiently crushed by their calamity, should be horse-whipped, is a mild way of putting it. No dictionary could do such cold-blooded atrocity justice. Of course such items help sell a paper; but, alas, how low must be that editor's standard of journalism who permits his employés to pander to so corrupt and ghoul-like a taste! I think, could he sometimes look in upon the sorrowing family circle, which he has assisted to drag into this kennel publicity, or if he could suffer in his own family that which he so remorselessly deals out to another, he might realize the deadly nature of these poisoned arrows which he aims at his neighbor's heart.
Again, because the victims so assailed have not the prefix of "Hon." to their names, and have no "fashionable and beautiful sister," or "prominent and wealthy uncle," shall we therefore excuse this cowardly attack upon their poor hearths and homes? Let any one run over certain police reports of the day, if he would see how misery and misfortune are treated as a jest, by these small, brainless wits hard up for a subject. One's blood boils, that the human being exists who could regard such things from the standpoint of a circus clown. In fact, a circus clown is respectable in comparison, since his jests are legitimate and harmless.
These gentry never did me any personal harm.
True, black hair has often been awarded me, instead of light, by these scribblers, "who were on very intimate terms with me," and I have measured six feet in height, instead of four and a half; and I have "a stylish carriage and footmen," which I fervently wish the international copyright law would drive up to my door, bating the usual vulgar livery; also, half the things which they have asserted I "waste my earnings upon" would be agreeable to possess, and of course I grieve to take them down a single peg on all these statements; but lying did not die with the serpent in Eden, for his slimy trail is all through newspaperdom, save and except the – now don't you wish you knew?
No humane or decent person, can read the police reports in some of the papers in New York, without feeling unutterable loathing and contempt for the writers. Is it not enough that these poor wretches, in their downward course, have lost almost the faintest impress of immortality, that one who at least bears the semblance of manhood, can stand over them and manufacture coarse jibes by the yard, to be perused by young people at the family hearth-stone? It is a disgrace to our civilization, and to the paper in whose columns they appear.
How would these writers like it, if the sister who once shared their cradle – having, in some mad moment, thrown away all in life that is pure and sweet to women – should she be brought up among that wretched crowd for sentence, how would he like it, to have her spoken of in this manner? —
"Miss Josephine Jones, a frail sister, with a bruised nose that once had been prettier, and a bonnet that did not originate in Paris, was charged with getting drunk, and tearing the hair from Miss Alice Carr's red head. The hair was produced in court, but for some inexplicable reason the clerk of the court seemed disinclined to touch it. Miss Josephine was found guilty, and gathering up the remnant of a greasy silk gown in her fair hand, she walked gracefully forth, to be provided with lodgings and grub, free of expense, on Blackwell's Island, where so many of her sex rusticate for the pleasant winter months."
Or, suppose he had a young brother, who had recklessly thrown off home influences, and, before reaching maturity, was brought into court as a common drunkard, how would he relish, having him spoken of in this manner? —
"An infant of twenty-one, named Harry Dexter, with blear eyes, and torn hat slouched over his swollen mug, was next called up. His boots and the blacking-brush seemed not to have had a very intimate acquaintance of late, and the laundress had evidently, for some cause or other, neglected his linen. His youthful hands also would have been improved by a dexterous use of soap and water. Young Harry had no occasion to inquire the way to his future boarding house, having often ridden down on previous occasions in that accommodating omnibus called the Black Maria, to take a sail at the city's expense to Pauper's Island."
We might multiply instances of this heartless and disgusting way of speaking of the faults and vices of our fellow-creatures, but this specimen will suffice to show the spirit in which they are penned. Nor is it any excuse, that many of the friends of these wretched beings can neither read or write, nor by any possibility ever be wounded by these so-called jocular allusions. I insist that the effect on the young people of our community is demoralizing. God knows that in the crowded city, with its whirling life, we have hard work enough to avoid jostling aside the urgent claims of the erring and unfortunate around us, without such help as this from the devil. It is bad enough "to pass by on the other side" when Christian charity challenges pity and help; but what must that man be made of, who would stand over a crushed fellow-being, and, for a few dollars, make merry with his misery? Surely, it seems to me, that the editors of the papers where these disgraceful items appear, cannot be aware how disgusting they have become, to those who would else gladly welcome their daily issues in the family.
Burlesquing a drunkard! Why not burlesque a funeral? with the coffin and the mourners, with their sobs and tears and grieving hearts? Do those who get up such a painful exhibition ever think that there may be amid their audience some persons who have had, day after day, their lives saddened and imbittered by the dreadful reality? Is it a legitimate theme for mirth or ridicule? We think not.
HELP FOR THE HELPFUL
I HAVE never, in any temperance discussion, written or spoken, heard or seen any mention of this class of inebriates; and yet the drunkards on tea are just as surely sapping the foundations of life, as the devourers of whiskey or gin. That women only, or mostly, are the victims, does not lessen the importance of my statement. I say mostly, for I have in my recollection at least two literary men of note, who primed themselves on strong green tea, without sugar or milk, for any literary effort, when overtasked nature flagged. One of them became in consequence subject to distressing fits, and has since deceased.
But it is the women who practise this form of inebriation of whom I would now speak. The working-girls, the sempstresses, the tenders in shops, who, being able to pay but slender price for board, get badly-cooked, poor food, and, in consequence, often three times a day, call for the fatal "cup of tea," which, for the moment, "sets them up," as they call it, and enables them to shoulder again the load they have dropped, till another fit of exhaustion overtakes them, worse than the preceding, to be followed by a repetition of the same pro-tem. remedy. Then follow indigestion, headaches, sleepless nights, and the usual long train of miseries, which any physician who has ever been called upon to prescribe for these overworked, underfed unfortunates, will immediately endorse. Tea to the working-girl, taken in this way, is like the "corner-grocery-drink" to the working-man, and just as deadly in its results as if it sent her reeling through the streets, as rum does him; although she neither sees, knows, nor would admit it, any more than he would. Sometimes, when you speak to them about it, they reply, "But I must have something to keep me up; I have no appetite for food; I am so tired all the time, and tea makes me feel so good."
The old plea of the drunkard the world over. Look at these weary women, with dark circles about their eyes, nervous almost to insanity, ready to "cry" at the slightest notice, the blue veins on their temples looking as if they were painted outside the skin. Look at their long, thin, sick-looking fingers, and their slow, weary steps, from which all the spring and elasticity of youth has long since departed. See them swallowing "pills" by the dozen, and trying every quack medicine afloat, instead of resisting the enemy which has done all or two-thirds the mischief.
Of course, the world over, bad food is the sworn ally of drunkenness in every shape, and these poor girls have much to contend against in that shape.
Then, again, I think few women can long preserve their self-respect amid dirty surroundings. One often sees with a pained pleasure – if this expression is not paradoxical – their faint attempts to make light out of darkness, and beauty out of deformity, in the solitary plant, struggling for life, and its one slant ray of sunshine, outside some tenement-house window. Or, if you enter, a rude print upon the soiled wall, of some saint, or child, or some scene in nature; upon which latter the weary eyes often turn with a vain longing at realization. These sights, to the humanitarian, who is trying to solve life's great problem for the benefit of those on whom it bears so heavily, are suggestive. It is clear, at least, that woman, from choice, would not be amid dirt or noisome odors. What man would become, without her refining influence, and the touch of her reformatory fingers, and her unpolluted sense of smell, of which tobacco has deprived him, it is not my purpose now to consider, although I have very firmly rooted ideas on this subject. But there is a class of women among those whom adverse circumstances have thrown into such places, upon whom it bears the more hardly, because they have been accustomed all their life to the reverse of this.
Hundreds so situated, sunk out of sight of former acquaintances by cruel want, bear it bravely, heroically, while struggling hopefully and one-handed, against discouraging odds, for better days. Some, alas! go down, soul-sick, body-weary, under the unequal contest, as we who live in this great, swarming city know. Benevolent ladies in New York are awake to this; and the question arising, What can we do for such? has been answered, by energetic and Christian ladies, by the establishment of boarding-houses, in respectable and pleasant neighborhoods; with board at prices but little higher than those which they were obliged to pay in the disagreeable localities above mentioned. Indeed, in some urgent and genuine cases, upon application, the applicant has been received upon merely nominal board, in recognition of the Bible fact that "bricks cannot be made without straw." In one such institution, I lately spent a most profitable and delightful morning. It is located on Washington square – one of the most delightful as well as central spots in New York City – by ladies of wealth and position in society, and, better still, ladies of intelligence and piety, – executive ladies, who do something beside talk, and know how, and when, and where to act for this great and humane object.
With such a good and solid foundation, they have moved on, as their strength and means have permitted. I passed from one to another of the pleasant rooms of the young ladies, who occupied apartments here, and who were, at that hour in the forenoon, scattered far and wide over the city; some as teachers in schools and in families, some as pupils in the School of Design, or the ward schools, while many were occupied as dress-makers, sempstresses, copyists, &c. I looked around me at the clean white little beds, at the books, at the prints upon the walls, at the climbing ivy and flowering plants, upon which the sun was shining as if in blessing, at the innumerable little tokens of personality, which are so suggestive to the stranger on entering an unoccupied apartment; those little things which say to you as you read the title of a genuine and well-thumbed book, "Ah! here lives one who thinks;" or you see by the thousand little refined touches, and orderly and wise arrangement of clothing and furniture, the neat thrift of woman expressed, and you feel thankful that they will not come home, when the day's toil is over, to unholy sounds, and unclean sights, and bad air, and loathsome food. You thank God that such women can keep up heart for their exhaustive and unaccustomed toil, by the certainty of a safe and respectable shelter over their heads, when night draws its curtain over the temptations and the wickedness of this great city. You are thankful that their self-respect is not only preserved in this most important way, but by intercourse and contact with the ladies of worth and refinement who have the institution in charge and at heart.
If this is not a noble institution, what is? I do not call it a charity. It were wrong so to designate it. From out that threshold pass noble, self-supporting girls, putting to shame the useless lives of the idle, paniered ladies who remorselessly wear out the souls of husbands, fathers, and brothers, in the vain struggle for fashionable supremacy. No: this Institution is a help, not a charity. Its object is to help those who wish to help themselves.
Upon one of the walls of a little room there I saw a representation of the "Grecian Bend." I looked on this picture, and on that, and my eyes were moist with gratitude for one, and with womanly shame for the other.
Do you ever think how much work a little child does in a day? How, from sunrise to sunset, the dear little feet patter round – to us – so aimlessly. Climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to another place, but never still. Twisting and turning, rolling and reaching and doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their future uses. It is very curious to watch it. One who does so may well understand the deep breathing of the rosy little sleeper, as, with one arm tossed over its curly head, it prepares for the next day's gymnastics. A busy creature is a little child.