NAKED, AND NOT ASHAMED.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3906, 24 April 1877, Page 2

NAKED, AND NOT ASHAMED.

(The World). Burks' ■well-known aspiration that we miglit see ourselves as we are beheld by our neighbors, and derive wisdom from the melancholy spectacle, must present itself forcibly to such thoughtful members of society as chance to find themselves in a ball-room, and have rather the inclination to observe and to moralise than to become themselves whirling members of the giddy throng. Every woman present firmly believes that the dress she has herself adopted is absolutely becoming, however hideous she may declare its style to be when exhibited on the persons of her friends. And certainly the fashions now prevailing are not only somewhat startling to those embai'rassed with any remnant of that old-world commodity propriety, but demand a grace and a beauty of figure very far from being general. Formerly, when a lady was of so generous a disposition as to be anxious to expose her charms to general observation, all she could do was to cut her dress lower than her neighbors were willing to do ; but modern enlightenment enables her to progress far beyond this. To say nothing of the fashion that permits her to dispense altogether with sleeves, and to exhibit to the admiring gaze of all men the vaccination marks inflicted in her infancy and at any subsequent period of panic, or the contraction of skirt that impedes the freedom of her movements and defines the shape of her lower limbs as closely as a damp bathing-dress, there is an institution known as a "Cuirass bodice," which, lengthened far below the waist, leaves not an indentation. It really seems the ambition of each fashionable woman to render her dress more like a skin than that of her neighbor, besides exhibiting as large a portion of the real flesh as can be done without the apology for raiment absolutely dropping off. Of course to argue against all this on the score of decency and propriety would be worse than useless ; for such words and all that they imply and entail are absolutely abhorrent to the fast women whose greatest ambition is to look like third-rate burlesque actresses ; but they may perhaps not be impervious to the suggestion that such dressing excites in the men it is designed especially to captivate a feeling very far indeed from admiration. However much men may admire actresses, and applaud their most daring approaches to absolute nudity, there is not one, even of the fastest among them, who likes to see the same style imported into the society of which his mother and his sisters are members. He lias not yet come to regard those who from their position, even if not from their manners, are supposed to be ladies precisely in the same light as the corj/phees of the ballet ; and a woman who, while professing to be dressed, stands with every line and in every crease of her form distinctly revealed is not to him an attractive object ; he would prefer a little of the mystery which it seems the chief endeavor of the women of the day utterly to discard. Besides this, all follow the fashion like a Hock of unreasoning sheep ; the woman whose every bone stands out in bold relief cuts her dress as low as does her plunvp sister, and resembles nothing so much as a carefully articulated skeleton ; the portly matron wears her cuirass as long and as tight, and ties her skirt round her as closely, as does her slender daughter, iinaginingfondly,butvainly,that she presents a precisely similar appearance; while all are alike careless of the undoubted fact that the portion of the arm between the elbow ami tlio shoulder is the least beautiful part of that member, being generally either too thin or too stout, and not seldom extremuly red. Few things are more unlovely than a thin skinny arm, unveiled by tulle or sheltering amenity of any sort,

issuing hard and severe from the tiny shoulder-strap that alone withholds the indelicately low cuirass from absolute collapse. A woman who exhibited some great natural beauty might find admirers, even though the admiration might be largely mingled with reprobation ; but, either the woman of the day, blinded by Vanity, conceive themselves to be gifted with faultless forms, or they have read, without "comprehending, the story of Phyrne, and believe the fascination to have lain in the exposure rather than in the rare and startling beauty disclosed. Naturally enough, the freedom of ballroom drees has also extended to ballroom manners, and those who front any cause, such as absence from England, have for two or three years joined the festive throng, will on their return to the scene feel somewhat startled at the changes they will find. The ladies lean on their partners' shoulders in a manner which would formerly have been thought suggestive of dancing salons of far from good repute, and leave there, if the gentleman may be credited, distinct traces of the foreign substances with which they . have sought to render themselves "beautiful for ever." Strange Jtfjbdes of dancing too have been intro--<"iuced, endowed if possible with even stranger names ; the old-fashioned valse with its graceful gliding movement is almost a thing of the past, having given way to such twirls and springs as are known as the "Manchester Swing,' the "Boston Drop-step," the "Liverpool Lurch," and many more. Of course, if the dancers like the polka, there is no reason why it should not be revived ; but surely quiet members of the community may protest against the loud stamp with which some of the gentlemen think it necasgary to enliven their performance, and^vliich is suggestive rather of a clogdance or theatrical hornpipe than of the graceful refinement of private life. Oan ! anything, either, be conceived more idiotic than the innovation introduced into the third figure of the Lancers, where the gentlemen, linking their arms together, go through a performance more suggestive of Ojibbeway Indians setting out on the war-path than of civilised ibeings in the nineteenth century. I All these may be called small and insignificant matters, but, like straws, they show the force of the current, and mdifeate as marked a declension in manners as the style of dress does in morals. Of course many women, especially very young ones, put on their dresses because it is the fashion, and really do not consider either the indecency or the suggestiveness of their appearance ; but it is otherwise with many, and especially with those who are responsible for setting the fashions of the day- At P resent & ball-room forcibly suggests a number of actresses rehearsing the toilettes of Orjp/iee aux Enfers, or some equally decollete piece, excepting, indeed, that it has not yet become the fashion to exhibit the ancles, and that interminable trains still survive to entangle and trip up the footsteps of the unwary. Many and grievous are the falls consequent thereon, and m these days when a lady falls her skirts are far too closely swathed around her for it to be possible for her to rise unassisted. So she remains in any position, graceful or the reverse, in which she may happen to fall, until help arrives, her partner not unfrequently being more occupied in lamenting his bruises and anathematising the delinquent train than in helping her to recover herself. Certainly if a little of the redundant drapery that floats uselessly on the floor could be judiciously applied to other portions of the costume, comfort, decency, and appearance would all profit immensely thereby.