The Crinoline in "Punch."

Otago Witness, 14 December 1893, Page 49

The Crinoline in "Punch."

Twenty years ago crinolines occupied a good deal of space alike in public places and in the comic prints.

"Mr Punch " never liked the crinoline. It incommoded him ; it made him doubt whether the globe were really as roomy as geographers averred. He was driven to inconvenient and ridiculous shifts in order to adapt himself to the extravagant requirements of the ladies' hoops. Accordingly he eggs his artist on to show in the plainest possible manner that either the crinoline must be abolished or some grave alteration must be made in social usages. The crinoline had become all-pervading. Ordinary staircases are not wide enough for Angelina and her partner descending to the supper room ; Angelina wantß the whole staircase to herself, and Edwin, holding her hand, descends outside the balusters. It is as bad when they ride together in a hansom ; Angelina and her hoops fill the interior, and Edwm sits perilously on the splasher.

In Derbyshire, where stone walls are substituted for fences or hedges, and a two-foot gap in the wall does duty tor a stile, ladies in the best fashion cannot walk through the fields at all. "Well, dear," observes Lucy to Grace at a pass-way of this sort, "if this is the style of thing in Derbyshire, farmers had better write up •no thoroughfare ' at once ; then people would know what to do."

On occasion the crinoline serves as a mantrap. A lady and her husband are outside a bonnet shop, in the window of which the lady espies the newest shape from Paris. Unhesitatingly she turns to her husband. "Charles, dear, I am really afraid that my crinoline is coming off." " Good gracious, Fanny ! Let's bolt into this bonnet shop." And " Mr Punch" brings the story to a laconic termination with the comment " Sold ! " which applies as well to the bonnet a3 to the gentleman who paid for it. In the courge of time, however, the satirist triumphed ; the crinoline did at length " come off," and fell from the waist of beauty " never to rise again." — Leisure Hour.