One of my anonymous correspondents takes strong ground in first denying that there has been any more death by burning of late than usual; and next by assuring me that if I had known what it is to wear petticoats, I should be thankful for the invention of the hoop: after which she proceeds to insist that no women shall use the blessing but the few of the upper ranks who have nothing useful to do. She fully agrees with me about the mischief to the vulgar; but she does not perceive what the privileged class have to do with that, beyond reprobating the ambition which causes the servant girl to emulate the gentlewoman’s way of dressing, as the gentlewomen emulate that of their superiors. The coroners’ inquests of the last year are the best answer to one point: the testimony of Englishwomen by the score, whose judgment and feelings I respect, satisfy me on the second: and I need no aid in pronouncing on the character of the third item in the statement. I have no complacency in regarding as my countrywomen any persons who think that working women are served right by being burned to death in imitating gentlefolks, instead of submitting to be badged by a costume like the peasantry of France. Our country and time are so far advanced that these insolent critics of our social state must make up their minds to follow the progress of the rest of our world, instead of hoping to drag society back to the arrangements of the dark ages.
This reminds me of a suggestion offered in the same spirit.
VII.“Would it not be a good thing to impose a tax on crinoline and hoops, by which the use of them would be confined to the opulent classes?”
The slightest glance into the history of sumptuary legislation anywhere, and especially in England, would show how ineffectual it has always been: and the suggestion at this time of day is truly extraordinary. The shortest course, however, is to see whether, if the thing could be done, it would prevent “poor people” wearing any imitation they please of the dress of the gentry. One Saturday evening a country lady had business at the cottage of a labourer, whose family lived on ten shillings a week. One of the girls was pushing something into the lowest of a hierarchy of tucks in a white petticoat: and that something is not exactly an article which the legislature could tax. The girl was preparing for church, next morning; and she was doing it by thrusting a long blackberry switch into the tuck of her petticoat,—that bramble, stripped of its thorns, being the next best material for a hoop after the steel apparatus of the tax-paying gentlewomen.
What remains, in the form of defence, is mere matter of amusement. For instance—
VIII. “It should be considered that the balloon-skirt saves life as well as destroys it. A young woman was thrown down a coal-pit by her lover; and she descended alive, as on a parachute. It is not fair to conceal this quality of crinoline or the hoop.”
No doubt it will be duly considered when women of all ranks and ages hover about the mouths of coalpits every day, and all day long, as they do about the household fire and candle. Till then we may leave it.
IX. “It is not fair to condemn this custom more than others which have occasioned loss of life. If balloon-skirts are to be denounced, we must condemn, for instance, false teeth, and thus sentence old people to a period of indigestion at the close of life; because inquests have been held on persons who died by swallowing false teeth.”
Here, again, the discussion may be deferred. When people of all ages and conditions take to wearing false teeth as a fashion, and for reasons of fashion alone, it will be time enough to think of discountenancing false teeth. I am not aware that there is any such existing taste for them as leads anybody to adopt them without some inducement of individual need.
All the champions of the fashion, except one or two, insist on my understanding that they approve of it only “in moderation.” I do not see that any standard is proposed by which the meaning of “moderation” may be ascertained; and I suspect no two of the letter-writers would agree as to the proper dimensions of their skirts. Yet, under this head of their remonstrance, if they do not resort to science for measurement, they do to morality and religion for a sanction.
X. “It is a mere indulgence of vanity to refuse to wear a hoop,—a seeking of notice by singularity.”—“It shows a temper of cruelty to endeavour to make anybody uneasy in doing as others do, and especially to trouble young girls with scruples or restrictions.”—“As much weakness is shown by going into one extreme as another,—by condemning hoops of any size as by wearing the largest kind. Total abstinence is an unchristian principle, as we learn by the history of celibacy, and the spectacle of teetotalism: why not therefore in this case?”
I will only say that I do not look among the vain women of my acquaintance for those who resist the fashion of the hoop: that it seems to me kinder to warn one’s neighbours against causing violent death than to let them slide unwarned into a liability which may destroy the peace of their whole lives, and that I rather imagine that the unchristian character of total abstinence depends on what is abstained from. The appeal is to St. Paul; and I can only say that I do not think St. Paul would have condemned total abstinence from Wilful Murder. If I remember right, too, he recommends abstinence from things otherwise innocent when they may lead weak brethren into danger or offence.
Enough! I must assure my readers that these defences are, to the best of my belief, offered in simple good faith by my various correspondents. For my own part, I have written in a sufficiently serious mood—in truth, in a very sad one. I have only to leave my readers to judge for themselves of the pleas offered to me. Some will perhaps think that it would have been wiser in the ladies to have proposed,—if any defence,—the unanswerable one—“I choose to wear the hoop because I choose it.” That is a point with which I am not concerned. But there is another which concerns us all.
