Show Kings with Petticoats I is a remarkable fact that the petticoat petti-coat was first worn by men and that I even in this age and generation men are I loath to discard its flowing drapery says a writer in The Minneapolis Tribune I like to record this fact Naturally women take a sort of savage satisfaction in discussing dis-cussing a weakness in the other sex especially es-pecially in the matter of dress Please i dont stare me out of countenance at the supposed presumption of my assertion that men have or appear to have a sort of envious I en-vious feeling toward us for having stolen r from them this preogative and that they clutch at every means in their power to wrest it from or at least share it with us for Ill prove it before I get through And we do not wonder this is so There is dignity in draper as well as grace and elegance When Henry VII went to meet Ann of Cleves he was habited we read in a coat of velvet somewhat made like a frocke embroidered all over with flatted gold of damaske vith small lace mixed between of gold and other laces of the same going traverswise that the I ground little appeared and in a description de-scription of a similar garment belonging to his fatherIIenry VII we read of its being decorated with bows of ribbon quite as a belle of the present day would adorn a ballroom dress I is well known that the garment was at first not alone a skirt but as the name denotes a little coat How it came to lose its upper half or boy we do not know unless the petticoat was made with long skirts for the sake of warmth and in each case it was as much a petticoat as we understand under-stand it as anything else We have only to look at Shakspearan character nay let us be thorough and go back to the time of the patriarchs to discover the skirts of men And easily enough we trace them down through the ages In the inventory of the effects of Henry V appears a petticoat of red damask with open sieves and although it was a I question whether this had been fashioned for a man or woman it would i n womans be the only instance known be fore Elizabeths time of a woman using such a garment Thus we hear nothing of womens petticoats before the Tudor period Good Queen Bess with all her learning which was essentially masculine mas-culine in her age and time had the true instincts of womanliness in her as regards personal adornment and even though we find her deficient in taste and heartily wish she might not have made such a guy of herseif in her old age yet as a woman we have her to I thank for stockings and petticoats and many other luxuries which have become necessities and whichwe now appropri ate with as true a belief in nppropr a belef our inalien j able right to their sole inalen as though the legacy had fallen to us from a 1 Mother Eve instead of Maiden Elizabeth |