Show I TO REFORM THE FASHIONS If the Womens Christian Temperance 1 Temper-ance Union werent a temperance organization and c couldnt therefore be guilty of any sort of extravagance it might be said of it now that it has broken off more than it can masticate It has attacked the stronghold ol womans dress and officially declared war on all fashons fin female apparel that include narrow waists extravagant extrava-gant bustles useless trails and so on The first assault is a petition to the publishers of fashion papers and magazines requesting them not to isue plates or descriptions of the costly styles that are devised in Europe but to make the female figures in the fashion plates conform to the proper and natural outline of a healthy female fprm the idea being that if a woman doesnt see bustles extending extend-ing eighteen inches OP two feet to the rear and waists compressed to he size of a middleweight boxers arm she will not want to be thus molded padded and twisted out of shape If the appeal to the publishers does not avail something else will be tried for the good women of the Union declare them elves in sober determined earnest in the new cruisade upon which they have entered Now everybody must heartily commend com-mend the purpose of the Union and all rightthinking persons will wish the object may be attained but is there anybody who can say that he believes the earnest women who have under taken this reform will accomplish any thing but their own defeat It would be an easy matter to estab ish and enforce temperance throughout the land of the men who drink would consent to stop it is their refusal to stop drinking that interferes so much with the good people who i would like to see the race always sober and sane So it would not be difficult to institute dress reform and restore the female form to a condition of natural tural and healthy outline if the dear victims of fashion would only consent to disregard the commands of the censorious sorious dame who rules women more completely than does the Czar his subjects sub-jects The fashion magazine that refuses re-fuses to give the fashion plates had bet ten suspend at once or convert itself into a book of recipes telling how to make jellies knit stockings and train children in the way they should go it will then become the organ of the truly good and awfully plain but strong minded women who number about one in a thousand the sex To reform the fashions and have women exercise more common sense in dress it will be necessary to first change the nature of women themselves > |