Verger: "Take their 'ats off! Bless you, Sir, those are the Dean's young ladies!"
The Rational Dress reformers were tremendously in earnest, but they entirely failed to convert the fashionables, and Punch, who refused to take them seriously, ridiculed the movement in a burlesque cut of "United Trousers v. Divided Skirts," in which retaliation effects a reductio ad absurdum. An exhibition of Rational Dress was held in Prince's Hall in the summer of 1883, but Punch remained unconvinced, and even obscurantist in his comments:—
We look at the models—they puzzle our noddles—
Regarding them all with alarm and surprise!
Each artful customer revives Mrs. Bloomer,
And often produces an army of guys.
The costume elastic, the dresses gymnastic,
The wonderful suits for the tricycle-ess—
Though skirts be divided, I'm clearly decided,