The world’s turned upside down;
The ladies will be tailors,
And serve Old England’s Queen
As soldiers and as sailors.
Won’t they look funny when
The seas are getting lumpy,
Or when they ride astride
Upon an Irish donkey?
The ladies will be right;
Their husbands will be undone,
Since Bloomers have arrived
To teach the folks of London—
The females all I mean—
How to lay out their riches
In Yankee-Doodle-doos
And a stunning pair of breeches.
Female apparel now
Is gone to pot, I vow, sirs,
And ladies will be fined
Who don’t wear coats and trousers;
Blucher boots and hats,
And shirts with handsome stitches,—
Oh, dear! what shall we do
When women wear the breeches?
Now some will wear smock-frocks
And hobnail shoes, I vow, sirs;
Jenny, Bet, and Sal,
Cock’d hat and woollen trousers.
Yankee-Doodle-doo,
Rolling in the ditches;
Married men prepare
To buy the women breeches!
Punch had, among other Bloomer skits, the following rather good example:—
MRS. GRUNDY ON BLOOMERISM.
Hoity-toity!—don’t tell me about the nasty stupid fashion!
Stuff and nonsense!—the idea’s enough to put one in a passion.
I’d allow no such high jinkses, if I was the creatures’ parent.
‘Bloomers’ are they—forward minxes? I soon Bloomer ’em, I warrant.
I’ve no patience nor forbearance with ‘em—scornin’ them as bore ’em;
What! they can’t dress like their mothers was content to dress before ’em,—
Wearing what-d’ye-call-’ems—Gracious! brass itself ain’t half so brazen;
Why, they must look more audacious than that what!s-a-name—Amàzon!
Ha! they’ll smoke tobacco next, and take their thimblefuls of brandy,
Bringing shame upon their sex, by aping of the jack-a-dandy.
Yes; and then you’ll have them shortly showing off their bold bare faces,
Prancing all so pert and portly at their Derbys and their races.
Oh! when once they have begun, there’s none can say where they’ll be stopping—
Out they’ll go with dog and gun; perhaps a-shooting and a-popping.
Aye! and like as not, you’ll see, if you’ve a Bloomer for your daughter,
Her ladyship, so fine and free, a-pulling matches on the water;
Sitting in a pottus tap, a-talking politics and jawing;
Or else a-reading Punch, mayhap, and hee-heeing and haw-hawing.
I can’t a-bear such flighty ways—I can’t abide such flaunty tastes.
And so they must leave off their stays, to show their dainty shapes and waistses!
I’d not have my feet filagreed, for ever so, like these young women.
No; you won’t see me, I’ll be bound, dressed half-and-half, as a young feller;
I’ll stick to my old shawl and gownd, my pattens, and my umbereller.
The Bloomer agitation was but the beginning of a series of crazes for the reform of women’s dress, and the ‘Girl of the Period’ furore succeeded it, after an interval of several years. True, the Girl of the Period was scarcely a dress-reformer, but her dress and manners were sufficiently pronounced, and certainly her vulgarity could not have been surpassed by the most fat and blowzy Bloomer that ever held forth upon a public platform.
To Mrs. Lynn Linton belongs the honour of having discovered the Girl, and she communicated her discovery to the Saturday Review in 1868. This it was that gave some point to the saying that the Girl of the Period was but the Girl of a Periodical.
And certainly the vulgarity of the Girl of the Period was extremely pronounced. It was a vulgarity that showed itself in bustles and paniers; the ‘Grecian Bend;’ skirts frilled and flounced and hung about with ridiculous festoons, and short enough to display her intolerable Balmoral boots. An absurdly inadequate ‘Rink’ hat rendered her chignon all the more obvious, and ——. But enough! The Man of the Period was her equal in absurdity. He cultivated a hateful affectation of lassitude and indifference; he affected a peculiarly odious drawl, and he taxed his mind with an effort to sustain a constantly nil admirari attitude toward things the most admirable and happenings the most startling. He wore the most ridiculous fashion of whiskers, compared with which the perennial ‘mutton-chop’ and the bearded chin and clean-shaven upper lip of the Dissenter or typical grocer are things of beauty and a satisfaction to the æsthetic sense.