FATAL FASHIONS

Wellington Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 2096, 27 August 1864, Page 1

FATAL FASHIONS

FiauTiNG against fashion is always very uphill work. There is no visible tribunal to which we can appeal to rescind a law enacted by no visible power. Yet lhat law is not the lesi stringent in its operation because no one can tell who made it. Constitutional resistance to it is rendered impossible by the total absence of agencies, and open insurrection against it is brset with enormous difficulties. Its prescriptions are sometimes absurd, are often inconvenient ; but they are submitted to, if not always without grumbling, at any rate without overt opposition. This passive obedience to an unseen despotism is one of the phenomena of civilisation. Common sense seeks in vain for a reason why the cut of a coat or the shape of a bonnet should be determined by any authority save the will of the individual wearer. Yet the man who persisted in having his garments made in a certain form after his tailor had informed him that it was " not worn this season,' would give evidence of very exceptional independence of character ; and a woman who adhered to her intention of ordering a certain style of dress in the teeth of an official intimation that it was " unfashionable," oiiiiht, if discovered, to be sent to the British Museum and allotted a glass case to ! herself in the collection of curiosities. But | however irrational we may deem this slavish deference to the tyranny of custom we can neither ignore its existence nor hope for its speedy extinction. The time is probably very far distant when people will be allowed to attire themselves in the mauner they deem most becoming, without being looked upon as ridiculous, simply because their dress differs from that of their neighbours. Moreover, we are quite aware that as matters at present stand eveu a suggestion from the rougher sex with regard to feminine apparel is looked upon as an invasion of prerogative. So long as questious of taste are alone involved we may consent to observe the silence thus imposed upon us. We may deem that some fashions are supremely ujfly, but at the same time admit that it is no affair of ours. We may even do violence to our own opinion, and profess to admire that which we detest for the sake of pleasing those to whom we are indebted for an enormous share of life's enjoyments. But there are circumstances under which remonstrance is not only allowable but becomes a duty. When a style of dress is in vogue which is obviously fraught with peril to life, absleulioM from protest against it would be a crime. Over and over again we have to chronicle deaths for which enormously extended skirts are alone to blame. Within a very brief period two similar fatal casualties have lately occurred, differing in form, though in each case the result was mortal. List Monday week, Mrs Hackett met her husband at the Fenchurch-slreel Station, and then went home by the train to Hackney Wick, he following her on foot. When Mr Hacked reached the corner of Hedger's Grove, where he resides, the first thing he saw was a great blaze of light shining through the window of his own house. It was his wife who was enveloped in a sheet of flame. Upon her arrival the poor lady had gone to her bedroom and taken off her dress, and while she was engaged in some toilet operation her wide hoops tilted against the bars of the grate, and her clothing instantly took fire. She stood for a moment terrified, then ru9hed up the staircase a pyramid of fl une, shrieking in agony. She was wrapped in blankets, but all in vain. The firu raged fiercely within the huge cage in which it was imprisoned, and, moreover its size caused her struggles to displace the covering which hid been placed upon her, letting in fresh air to feed the bhtze. It seems probable that before help reached her she was too severely burnt to have survived ; but at any rate, within a few hours after her admission to the hospital she died in frightful torture; and of a newly-made bride, young blooming, and light-hearted, nothing but a charred corps remained. Only a week afterwards there occurred at Carlisle another catastrophe equally full of horror. Amongst a party of friends who had gone last Monday on a visit of inspection to the biscuit factory of Messrs Joseph Robinson &Co iv that city, was Miss Mary Nelson, aud she was accompanied by Mr Burrows, to whom she was to have been married within a few week*. The party had not been more than two minutes in the mill, and were still examining the basement storey, when a piercing shriek from Miss Nelson, who had tarried slightly in their rear, made them pause in terror. Her attention had been attracted by an Archimediau screw which was fenced by a biass rod, breast high ; but when she stooped to look at it her expanded skirts were caught by the machinery, and when her friends turned to look at her it was rapidly drawing her into its grasp. Mr Burrows clasped his betrothed round the waist, aud strove to draw her back, but the steel of her hoops hud been clutched by the wheels, and all his efforts were powerLss. The engiue dragged her out of her lover's arms, and whirled her round aud round before his eyes ; all her limbs were shivered into

ragments, and her body was lacerated and mangled almost out of human semblance. Is it too much to ask the women of England to ponder over these two tragedies, and te trace each calmly to its cause? There can be no question that both these victims would have been alive now if they hud not worn garments so expanded as to be wholly beyond their control. They could govern their own muvemeuts, but not those of their wide spreading skiits ; and in each instance death was the fruit of this I incapacity. We lay not a word with regard to the gracefulness of tbe prevailing fashion ; if want of symmetry were its only fault we should readily admit that this is a point upon which women have a right to form their own judgment, But we cannot concede their right to place their own lives in peril. Apart from tho personal sinfulness of courting self-destruction, there is this consideration to be burn in mmd — that each one ofour countrywomen is the centre of a little circle of happiness, in which all would be gloom without her sunshine. Father, husband, brother, or lover cherishes her as tbe source of his innocent joys, and the risks which she voluntarily runs are to each a source of constant and terrible anxiety. Is it not worth a little sacrifice on her part to set their minds at rest and quell tbe dread which haunts them perpetually now ? — Morning Star.