AN OLD DOCTOR'S OPINION ON WOMAN'S

DRESS.

I am

You ask me for my opinion on the subject of practical reform in the dress of women. As I have a habit of speaking out, you shall hear it roundly, and at once. I here premise that I utterly disclaim any admiration of the exaggerated and ridiculous caricatures exhibited on the stage and in our shop windows, under the title of "Bloomer Costume;" such a theatrical style of attire is not to be desired, nor would it be imitated by sensible women; but a modified phase of the proposed reform may be very judiciously and becomingly substituted. I think that the sooner an alteration and improvement takes place in female attire, the better. perfectly aware that vulgar ridicule and conceited prejudice operate powerfully to prevent this being effected, but we have so many instances on record of beneficial discoveries and progressions being the marked objects of scorn and derision when first discussed, that a reflective mind will not be dismayed at the antagonism offered by impertinence or ignorance. I think woman's dress, as at present arranged, is liable to the objections of dirt, danger, discomfort, and most certainly, despite its "Alexandrine length," indelicacy. Woman has two legs as well as man, and it is essential to have them as closely and as separately clothed to insure from cold and undue exposure. I have seen accidents, when a woman might have escaped without serious hurt, had not her instinctive attention been given to replacing her deranged outer garments, she knew she was insecurely covered below, and her anxiety to prevent further exposure was the direct cause of mutilation of body, and often loss of existence. Had she been accustomed to be well cased in some sound material, she would have been less fastidious about showing a leg for a few minutes, and the preservation of limb and life greatly facilitated thereby. I have lately had two female patients, who fell while going up stairs, in consequence of their skirts being too long to admit the possibility of ascending without raising these ridiculous petticoats with one hand. One lady, unfortunately, had her first-born in her arms; the child received a severe concussion of the brain, and the mother dislocated her wrist.

I have been called to attend many with rheumatic

PRICE 1d.

affections of the limbs, and internal diseases of the lower organs, when, on inquiry, I have found the patients either entirely without close-fitting habiliments, or wearing those of a flimsy and useless quality, affording no protection whatever against draught or damp. Now, if one of the two sexes must needs go about the world in such an unguarded state of body, I really think we men are most competent to incur the risk attending it, for the higher and more nervous organization of women renders it doubly incumbent on them to be uniformly and carefully wrapped about the extremities.

In making good my charge of "dirt" the world will admit the visible evidence afforded by trailing skirts every dusty or rainy day. I am a tolerable philosopher, and not easily disturbed by trifles, but when I see expensive silks and satins go about doing the work of crossing-sweepers' brooms,-when I see several inches of rich dresses trailing through the heterogeneous offensive gatherings of city-streets,when I see shoes and stockings one mass of mud,when I walk in a choking cloud of dust raised by the fair beings around me,-really my equanimity gets slightly irritated, and I am inclined to apply a pair of scissors to the "part affected;" and here I can say something of the indelicacy advanced. Women who have a natural respect for common cleanliness, as naturally endeavour to preserve their skirts from contamination, and frequently on a rainy day I have beheld ladies holding their dresses so high, that a most unseemly display was the consequence. Poor things they were perfectly innocent of the same display, and only exercising a womanly desire to keep "tidy;" but I vow that I have witnessed indelicate exhibitions, from attempts to keep long petticoats out of the mud, that offended good taste and refined feeling more than any reasonable adoption touching Turkish trowsers could have done. I have seen women get out of omnibuses on black, sloppy days, when one of two results was impossible to avoid,-either the drapery must serve as a mop to the steps, or there must be a very uncertain degree of personal exposure; in the first case, there is spoliation of a good dress and great annoyance to the wearer; in the latter, the unavoidable "indelicacy" is a subject of grinning delight to any empty-headed "gent who may be passing. It is my opinion that a woman's walking robe should be independent of

there, are essential to render the "plastic, breathing image fit to enter a drawing-room? What insolent presumption is in the hand that seeks to improve the upright beauty of the human being! And does the short-sighted mortal think that Nature will not have her revenge for the insult thrust upon her? Does the woman imagine that the arteries, veins, stomach, lungs, and heart, will do their proper duties under such a grasping vice of artificial constraint? Does she think her progeny will be strong and healthy, as if born of an untrammelled mother? Surely, there is need of reform in this error most peremptorily; for if the real amount of injury inflicted on the human system, by means of stays, were exposed to the blind victim's eyes, a woman would turn from "corsets as from a boa constrictor. I have three girls in my family, but not one of them has ever been incarcerated in "stays." A substantial sort of close-fitting vest is all I ever permitted them to wear, and I am happy to say, that finer forms, or better constitutions, cannot be produced; their spines are as straight as those of my boys, and had I a score of girls to bring up, I would teach them to look on steel, whalebone, and buckram, as so many means of suicide.

There is another condition of female dress which

deserves unmitigated censure; I mean the mysterious heap of either feathers, flannel, horse-hair, or wool, which goes by the generic name of "bustle." I have followed ladies who sported such an extreme redundance in this department, that it at once appeared laughably unnatural and grossly indelicate. Oh, what a pity it is that woman is not able to appreciate the natural and exquisite beauty of her form! How it is to be regretted, not only in a physical, but in an artistic sense, that she pinches in here and piles up there, regardless of the power and design of the Creator! Why will she insist on screwing in the ribs, and thereby ruining one of the greatest beauties in the human form?a flat, straight back. All grace is utterly negatived by the round, hunched-up shoulders which too often mark the female figure, and which are almost invariably the result of undue pressure on the spinal muscles. I saw a young woman on horseback at Brighton, a few days since, whose waist was a mere nothing,"-I looked at her with pity; for not only was she miserably sickly looking, but her whole figure was angular and ugly to a painful degree, and not a "line of beauty presented itself to the eye, despite her very taper waist. And now, taking all things into consideration, do you not think, my dear friend, that woman's dress might be improved? There is not the slightest occasion for women to be dressed like men; but I contend that flowing skirts of reasonable length, with trowsers, full or otherwise, to the ankle, would be infinitely superior in every way to the nasty, uncomfortable, dirty, "long petticoats," now in vogue, most strenuously observing, at the same time, that the body be habited loosely and freely, and I am convinced this reform would afford exhibitions of elegance far beyond anything the present system can show.

There is another point of woman's "full" dress, or rather "undress," which I cannot forbear touching on. "Indelicacy" seems to be the great moral statistic on which people dwell in this question of robe reform. Now, it seems to me to be great twaddle to discuss the gross indelicacy of showing four inches of ankle and leg covered with some thick material, while the bosoms of women are laid open to the insolent and unhallowed gaze of every male observer in "fashionable society." I have beheld "conventional" and "authorized" displays in this degree of Almack's "Bloomerism," which mortally disgusted me. How do we reconcile this incongruity? I am an old man, a husband and a father, and could

say much on this view of the question, but shall content myself with this advice to the "Women of England,"-Cover your bosoms, and prove your delicacy; show a little more of your legs, and become clean and comfortable.

As for the "indelicacy" of this reform, which is so much talked of by some very "nice" people, I can only say that I know the indelicacy lies rather in the minds of the fastidious observers, than in the proposed curtailing of street-sweeping garments, and every sensible man will readily admit that the proper cleanliness, real modesty, and personal comfort, of half the human creation would be greatly advanced by the abolition of these "horrid long petticoats." We never experience any great shock to our propriety when we see tall stripling girls attired in "frocks and trowsers," but rather admit that they are gracefully and healthily dressed; we never start at the sight of a Turkish lady, nor deem her at all unsexed because she displays a small portion of her legs in elegantly arranged muslin or silk. Oh! Fashion and Prejudice are a couple of jades, alike impudent and obstinate. For many years these two jades kept dear little infants muffled in "long petticoats," which were useless, expensive, and very inconvenient. They wrapped the tiny head in close hot caps, and insisted on many other things as foolish and unhealthy; but we have had a reform here, and the sooner we have a reform among our loved and highly-esteemed female scavengers, the better. As for wearing the breeches," "innovation of mascu line rights," and all that sort of nonsense, indulged in at random by brains of a very limited or very coarse order, I can only say, that I as much pity the man who deems his manhood established by his sole right to trowsers, as I do the woman who considers her modesty based on a needless quarter of a yard of dirty, dragging, cumbersome petticoat. Now you have my honest Opinion on Woman's Dress,-use it as you will.

THE rose has been a symbolic flower in every age of the world. It has been the universal symbol of beauty and of love; the half-expanded bud representing the first dawn of the sublime passion, and the fullblown flower being an emblem of the matured love, which, when it ripens in the heart of a devoted woman, gives her a nobility and grace only equalled by the angels, and renders her sacred to ONE in fond and constant attachment. It gives new life and enchantment to her beauty, and sheds a heavenly light upon the domestic hearth, and hallows all who come within its influence. The rose is the delight of the East, the eternal theme of the poet, and the emblem of all virtue and loveliness. The Romans, whose profuse use of flowers subjected them to the reproofs of their philosophers, considered the rose as an emblem of festivity. The Egyptians made it a symbol of silence, and crowned Harpocrates with a garland of its blossoms.

The classical story of the death of the beautiful youth, Hyacinth, has rendered that flower an emblem of grief. It is very probable, however, that the hyacinth of the ancients was the red lily, called the Martagon lily, or Turk's cap. Virgil describes the flower as of a bright red colour, and as being marked with the Greek exclamation of grief, AI, AI, and which may be faintly traced in the black marks of the Turk's cap. Milton speaks of this as

That sanguine flower inscribed with woe,

and as there are no such marks upon the wood hyacinth, that plant has been called Hyacinthus non scriptus (not inscribed). The Eastern poets have made the hyacinth subserve many poetical uses. By Hafiz it was adopted as the symbol of elegance and grace, and he delighted to compare his mistress's hair to its blossoms; hence the term,-hyacinthine locks, which was originally an Oriental comparison. The asphodel was also an emblem of sorrow, and the Greeks used it at their funerals.

We cannot wonder that so fragrant and lovely a plant as the myrtle should become a symbolical teacher. It was most anciently the emblem of peace and quietude, and gave a living freshness to the annunciation of the angel mentioned by Zachariah, who said, as he stood among the myrtle-trees, "We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest." From being an emblem of peace, on account of its quiet beauty and perfume, it afterwards became an emblem of war, in consequence of the hardness of its wood rendering it very suitable for warlike intruments:

The war from stubborn myrtle shafts receives.

VIRGIL.

From the supple nature of its branches, together with the odour emitted by its leaves, it was largely used for entwining into wreaths, garlands, and crowns. These were worn at the Roman festivals, and the myrtle-boughs were steeped in the wine, to improve its flavour and fragrance; and hence the myrtle became a recognized emblem of festivity. By the magistrates of Athens, it was worn as a symbol of office. By the Greeks, it was dedicated to Venus, either because it grows near the sea, whence she is said to have arisen, or because the sweet and unfading nature of its foliage, made it a suitable tribute to the goddess of beauty. The Greeks planted the myrtle abundantly in those lovely groves which have been so renowned in song, and where he who wandered was greeted by such a succession of delightful odours, that he might believe himself transported to some sweet land of enchantment; where every breath was sacred to poetry and love. The myrtle was sacred as a symbol of love and beauty, and the first temple erected to Venus was surrounded by a grove of myrtles. When the ancient poets or painters represent Venus rising from the ocean, they tell us that the Hours or Seasons, who were the offspring of Jupiter and Themis, present her with a scarf of many colours, and a garland of myrtles. There is an old fable concerning Eratostratus, who burned the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, on the same night as Alexander the Great was born. He was a Naucratian merchant, and during one of his voyages, there arose a terrible storm. Fortunately, he had in his possession a small statue of Venus, whose protection he immediately implored. The goddess caused a prodigious number of green myrtles to spring up in the ship, and of these the sailors made garlands, and by wearing them were saved. They arrived in safety at Naucratis, the great commercial city of Egypt, and from that period, the garlands of myrtle were called Naucratites. By Papirius Cursor, who erected the first sun-dial at Rome, the myrtle was made a symbol of the Roman Empire; and to make the idea more capable of appreciation by the people, he planted two myrtles, one reputed plebeian, and the other patrician. The prosperity or decline of these trees was regarded by the Romans as ominous of which party would predominate or sink into imbecility, in the government of the empire.

The floral symbols of Holy Writ are exceedingly

beautiful, and are frequently used to convey a divine command in a poetical form; and are usually remarkable for their botanical correctness. From the circumstance of Elijah having been sheltered from the persecutions of King Ahab by the juniper of the mountains, that plant has become a symbol of succour, or an asylum. Britain might well adopt this as her national emblem, for truly, since the stirring events in the various European states, persons of all languages and creeds may say with the Psalmist,-"Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy." The almond was a symbol of haste and vigilance to the Hebrew poets, "What seest thou?" said the Lord to Jeremiah, and he answered,-"I see a rod of an almond-tree. Then, said the Lord,-Thou hast well seen; for I will hasten my word and will perform it." The almond is a lovely plant, and puts forth its delicate blushing flowers so quickly, and so much in advance of other trees, and while its own branches are yet leafless; that its adoption as a symbol of haste is very happy. With the Eastern poets it was a symbol of hope,

The hope, in dreams of a happier hour,
That alights on misery's brow,
Springs out of the silvery almond flower
That blooms on a leafless bough.

But no floral symbol can equal in beauty or sacredness the passion-flower. This lovely blossom is so peculiar in construction, that when the Spanish conquerors of the New World first met with it in the woods, they gave it its name, and adopted it as an emblem of the sufferings of Christ. The thread-like stamens which surround the rays of the flower and some other portions, suggested to their enthusiastic imaginations the story of the Saviour's passion! and the sight of this wondrous symbol in a wilderness in which they trod for the first time, seemed to them to betoken conquest, riches, and power-to be achieved under the sanction of religion. But they sought rather to insure a temporal dominion, than to act in obedience to that God who had planted flowers in those solitary wilds; and the very men who beheld in the passion-flower an emblem of mercy and of love, an emblem of faith in God and fellowship to man, carried misery, malevolence, desolation, and death, wherever they trod, and made their standard a signal of blood, torture, and tyranny. Oh! that iniquity should ride rampant under the sacred banner of a Christian faith, and sow the seeds of ruin and degradation, while wearing an emblem of mercy and gentleness upon its savage brow! Oh let the passion-flower be still an emblem for us, but let it keep us in the fulfilment of the benign precepts of the great teacher, whose suffering is symbolized in the form of the flower,-that by contemplating it, we may be raised in thankfulness to God, and learn to recognize the great truth first taught by Him who

-Trod

The paths of sorrow, that we might find peace, -that all men are brothers, and that to love each other is our highest earthly mission!

The clover has been revered from the most remote antiquity as a religious symbol. Its triple leaf renders it adaptable to a multiplicity of ideas. The Druids held it in high repute, both as a charm against evil spirits, and for its supposed medicinal virtues. They were very confident in its powers, because its leaf represented the three departments of Nature,the earth, the sea, and the heaven. The legends of Ireland tell how St. Patrick chose it as an emblem of the Trinity, when engaged in converting the pagan Irish, and hence the esteem in which it is held by the

Irish people ;-for the shamrock is only the common white, or Dutch clover (Trifolium repens). The ancients represented Hope by a little child standing on tiptoe, and holding a trefoil in his hand. Scarcely any religious symbol has been so widely and reverently regarded as such, as the aloe. Throughout the East it is held in profound veneration. The Mahometans, especially those who reside in Egypt, regard it as a religious symbol of the most exalted character. The Mussulman who has performed a pilgrimage to the shrine at Mecca, ever after considers himself entitled to the veneration of a saint, and hangs the aloe over his door to signify his religious purity, and to proclaim the great duty which he has performed. It is also highly esteemed as a charm against any malign genius, and no evil spirit will pass a threshold where so holy a symbol is suspended. The Jews at Cairo have a similar belief, and suspend the aloe at their doors, to prevent the intrusion of these dreaded influences. The Mahometans, who plant their burial-places with lovely shrubs and flowers, making even death look beautiful and the graveyard a place filled with promises of joy, plant the aloe at the extremity of every grave, on a spot facing the epitaph; and Burckhardt tells us that they call it by the Arabic name saber, signifying patience. The custom is a holy one, for the plant is ever green, and so to those who mourn for the loved ones whom they have lost, it whispers patience, and is a living type of a more peaceful world afar, where those who have suffered here, and who have clung faithfully together, will meet again in the pleasant land.

The Eastern poets usually make the aloe a symbol of bitterness, doubtless in allusion to its association with death, and to the bitter flavour of its juices. "As aloe is to the body, so is affliction to the soul, --bitter, very bitter." It is usually adopted as an emblem of acute woe, of "Sorrow that locks up the struggling heart."

The woful teris that their letin fal,
As bitter werin, out of teris kinde,
For paine, as is lique aloes, or gal.
CHAUCER.

The wormwood is also a symbol of bitterness. In the modern Language of Flowers it represents absence. Dr. Watts says, in his work on Logic, "Bitter is an equivocal word; there is bitter wormwood, there are bitter words, there are bitter enemies, and a bitter cold morning;" and the absence of those we love is also bitter, and may well be spoken by wormwood. The rosemary has a similar meaning, and has become a symbol of remembrance, from the old custom of using it at funerals, and perhaps from its supposed medical virtue of improving the memory. Shakspere uses it as a symbol of remembrance :

There's rosemary for you-that's for remembrance:
I pray you, love, remember,

said the sad Ophelia so Perdita, in Winter's Tale:

[To Polizines and Camillo.] You're welcome, sir!
Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs,
For you there's rosemary, and rue; these keep
Seeming, and savour, all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance, be to you both,

And welcome to our shearing!

Pol. Shepherdess,

(A fair one are you) well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.

It is perhaps the greatest evidence of the transcendency of Shakspere's genius, that in the philosophy of little things there is a stern regard to truth of detail. Never does he mention an insect or a flower, but it is in harmony with the season, place, and

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His floral

moral of the event it serves to illustrate. symbols are especially beautiful, and when regarded as emblems of the purpose of the dialogue, shed a new light and beauty upon his sacred pages. In the same scene as we have just quoted, he makes Perdita give flowers to her visitors appropriate to, and symbolical of, their various ages.

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flour-de-lis being one!

But the most beautiful of Shakspere's floral symbols occur where poor Ophelia in her madness goes to make "fantastic garlands"

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, which are all emblematical flowers, and tell a silent tale of her broken heart. The first signifies fair maid; the second, stung to the quick; the third, her virgin bloom; the fourth, under the cold hand of death; and the whole, being wild flowers, might denote the bewildered state of her faculties. No wreath could have been chosen more emblematical of the sorrows of this beautiful blossom, blighted by disappointed love, and withered by filial sorrow.

We may learn much from this language of flowers. The alphabet of Nature is rich in eloquent teachings, and appropriate, though mute,-expressive of the hopes and fears which dwell in every human breast. Yes, flowers are meet symbols of human feelings and passions, and the sentiments and emotions which sway and agitate the soul of man :—

Those token-flowers tell,

What words can ne'er express so well.

And so, too, might have sung the Israelite of old, when wandering on the flowery banks of Jordan; or the Babylonian, when musing on the grassy borders of the Euphrates; or the swarthy son of Egypt, when kneeling in worship beside the sacred waters of the Nile. Flowers were the most prominent feature in the symbolic languages of antiquity, and originated in the true language of Nature, when the human heart made its first utterances. And when flowers were recognized as proofs and manifestations of divine love, they immediately became living symbols of human history, and foretokens of the events and purposes which were locked up in the unborn ages, and which were to be slowly unfolded to the human family, as Time sailed and ages were developed. Let them be symbolical to us in every place and season; and when Nature puts on her summer attire, and in her thousand varieties of flowers shows us the sweetest of her smiles, we may, through these silent preachers of beauty and holiness, become partakers of the joy which is wafted by the breezes of the morning. If the typical resemblances of flowers moved the men of old to veneration and worship, and kindled in their hearts noble and god-like aspirations, it may do the same for us, and teach us in the hour of