DRESS REFORM LEAGUE.— "TROUSERS ARE COMING."

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1875, 6 January 1875, Page 2

DRESS REFORM LEAGUE.— "TROUSERS ARE COMING."

The first National Convention of the Dress Reform League has been held at < | Painsville, Ohio. According to the re- | porters it was a thinly attended meeting jof " Ultra-Radical women," many of | whom desired the immediate emancipaI tion of their down-trodden sex from peti ticoats. and who are 'perfectly, willing to subordinate beauty to costume." • One of the most active, of the members, according to the New York Times, is described as being dressed in a ''fawncolored tunic, reaching about to the' knee;" and we are assured that most of the ladies wore those garments which | have long been considered as exclusively . | masculine apparel. Dr Mary Walker was ; not present, but sent a letter, putting her whole soul into the " work of the liberation of woman" from the embarrassing 4 ' costume which, it womld appear from the ' allegations of the lady speakers at the convention, is the cause of the present ' degrading thraldom of the female sex. William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, also sent a letter, which contained many sensible observations on the subject of dress. The venerable reformer suggested in the closing paragraph of his epistle, that seme fashion be devised " that shall combine neatness, artistic still with freedom of choice, and shall bo in accordance with the laws of physical health." The lad if • of the Painsville Convention, says the Times, could hardly have done better than to have adopted Mr Garrison's paragraph as their platform—and, forthwith adjourning, have returned to their domestic . hearths and cradles. But they did nothing of the kind ; they paid little attention to letters from non-attendants ; they organised and made speeches, they denounced the Boston dress Reform League! and Mrs Tillottson, the corresponding secretary of tho convention, of whose tongue an irreverent report said that "it would keep pace with a telegraph sounder," condemned the Boston ladies roundly because they desired to adhere to robes and draperies. " I tell you," cried Mrs Tillottson, exhorting tho assembly, " this reform means trousers. They are freedom to us, and they will afford us protection. Trousers are coming." After saying which, this inspired Cassandra retired amid tho grateful music of tumultuous applause. There wore, however, a few other ladies present, introduced as *; M.D.'s" who, while they declaimed against ihs health-destructive tendencies, of the modern fashionable dress pf^ women, did not desire to be forced to a declaration iv farour of trousers. They brought before the convention c nvincing proofs that the happiness of the race dc- ; peaded much upon the adoption of .a dross which should not render women confirmed invalids; and they gave necessary.and sensible advice in plain yet modest language; Although the ladies vrerc in the minority, they finally succeeded in persuading the trousers faction to embody in the preamble of the convention's platform a rather, more moderate denunciation of robes- and flounces than it h».d originally designed. „ One of the resolutions sets forth that " to her unphysiological, unnatural, and sui- . cidal modes of dress woman owes her physical inferiority to man, and that until she so clothes her body as to be able to compete with her brother in the world of work she can never rise to a full equality , with the sterner sex." Some of the {•peakers took occasion to criticise, gentlewoman for the timidity which the displays before the tyranny of fashiou and the abject slavishness with which she copies every lolly foisted upon her attention by the race of dressmakers or "dresschangers." '

Plague of Grasshopper*.—A. Kansas farmer solemnly declared that a grasshopper sat on the gale-port and threateningly asked, " William Bryant, where in thun*. der is the balance of that cold meat P "