Ditto, January 9.
When I came home this evening, a very tight middle-aged woman presented to me the following petition:
"To the Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great Britain.
"The humble petition of Penelope Prim, widow;
"Sheweth,
"That your petitioner was bred a clear-starcher and sempstress, and for many years worked to the Exchange; and to several aldermen's wives, lawyers' clerks, and merchants' apprentices.
"That through the scarcity caused by regraters of bread-corn (of which starch is made) and the gentry's immoderate frequenting the operas, the ladies, to save charges, have their heads washed at home, and the beaus put out their linen to common laundresses, so that your petitioner hath little or no work at her trade: for want of which she is reduced to such necessity, that she and her seven fatherless children must inevitably perish, unless relieved by your worship.
"That your petitioner is informed, that in contempt of your judgment pronounced on Tuesday the third instant against the new-fashioned petticoat, or old-fashioned farthingale,[22] the ladies design to go on in that dress. And since it is presumed your worship will not suppress them by force, your petitioner humbly desires you would order, that ruffs may be added to the dress; and that she may be heard by her counsel, who has assured your petitioner, he has such cogent reasons to offer to your court, that ruffs and farthingales are inseparable; and that he questions not but two-thirds of the greatest beauties about town will have cambric collars on their necks before the end of Easter Term next. He further says, that the design of our great-grandmothers in this petticoat, was to appear much bigger than the life; for which reason, they had false shoulder-blades, like wings, and the ruff above mentioned, to make their upper and lower parts of their bodies appear proportionable; whereas the figure of a woman in the present dress, bears (as he calls it) the figure of a cone, which (as he advises) is the same with that of an extinguisher, with a little knob at the upper end, and widening downward, till it ends in a basis of a most enormous circumference.
"Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that you would restore the ruff to the farthingale, which in their nature ought to be as inseparable as the two Hungarian twins.[23]
"And your Petitioner shall ever pray."