THE NO-PETTICOAT CLUB.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXII, 30 November 1895, Page 676

THE NO-PETTICOAT CLUB.

The very newest thing in clubs has been discovered in the United States. Its members are all girls. Indeed, in the very nature of things, this couldn’t be otherwise, since it was organised for the express and particular purpose of emancipating womankind from a form of slavery under which she has endured discomfort, not to sayinnumerable physical ills, for years and years—in fact, ever since she began to be an integral part of the busy, work-a-day world outside of her home. Now, a woman’s club may want to emancipate itself from something or other that has nothing whatever to do with political equality. For instance, the members of new club are too occupied in getting their daily bread this with its butter and jam accessories to even think about striking out the word ‘ male ’ from the Constitution, and they will frankly tell you that they can make neither head nor tail out of the whole tariff question. They are bright, every one of them, but their brightness doesn’t scintillate in a legislative way. The problem of life for these industrious maidens is the very latest method of getting through the coming winter without damp clothing, red noses and colds in the head. They have mapped out a programme and have pledged themselves to abide bv the rules and regulations of the N.P.C. Expanded, this means the No-Petticoat Club, and its members intend to liberate themselves from the yoke of dry goods’ tyranny. In other words, they will hibernate in bloomers. Creating any sort of public sensation is farthest from their thoughts, and the reader who jumps to the conclusion that a skirtless brigade of emancipated girldom will pirouette upon the thoroughfares is much mistaken. The bloomers will be there, but friendly mackintoshes will curtain them from the gaze of the common herd. ‘ It’s just this way,’ saida pretty girl, confidentially. She was so pretty and so confidential that you would have admired her as I did, and betrayed her as I atn doing, for the purpose of letting the world know what a very sensible thing an N.P.C. is. ‘We girls all earn our own livings, some of us as book-keepers, some as stenographers, others as telegraphers and in various business ways, and we have to be out, rain or shine, six days 111 the week. You know what it is to manage dress skirts, parcels, purses, umbrellas and what not, all at the same time, with your hands done up in gloves until they’ie about as useful as a pair of tongs. Then getting in and out of street cars with muddy platforms, crossing sloppy streets and walking on slippery pavements result in the certainty that, no matter how careful you are, you will reach the office bedraggled aud chilly, and cross in the bargain. Sitting all day in damp petticoats is bad for the health and trying to the temper. I caught fearful colds that way last winter, and paid out a big part of my salary in doctors’ bills and cough medicines. I felt that I couldn't stand it again this winter, so I talked it up among the girls, and they all fell in with the idea that a club could be formed in which every girl would promise to wear bloomers and leggings under her rain coat. We shall keep a dress skirt at the office, of course. Nobody could object to a peg in some out-of-the-way corner for that purpose. One can hop into a skirt in a jiffy aud be ready for the day's routine without the aqueous accompaniment of soaked hems aud trailing sponges around one’s feet.’