The hours for social pleasures were never so late as at present. People do not think of showing themselves at any "evening" entertainment until midnight. The strain of this kind of thing on young people who have necessary duties to perform the next day, tends to lower vitality and shorten life. In London—from which city nearly all the fashions unsuitable to our climate and life come—there is a large "leisure class" who can sleep into the afternoon without shirking any urgent demands. Here, where even the richest men have to work, these late hours are preposterous. But they are English—and, rather than not be English, the young man of to-day prefers listless days and a frequent resort to brandy and soda—English, too!—and other stimulants, to keep him up to his work.
Another fashion, which has become so rampant as to need a general and continued objection to it, is that of wearing low-necked gowns. A little more firmness in defying the demands of fashion would, perhaps, save some woman's life. But it is very hard for a woman to be firm on a question of fashion. Queen Victoria insists on low-necked gowns; therefore all the American world of fashion insists that the Queen's mandate shall be followed. At a dinner or dance, the sight is sometimes appalling; for what can be more shocking than the apparent attempt of decent women, old and young, lean and fat, to show their shoulder blades? Like Katisha, in the "Mikado," they seem to think that the possession of a "beautiful left shoulder blade" will atone for all other defects. The boxes at the opera, and all the places where fashionable people sit, offer a startling picture of how immodest modest women can be when fashion demands it. A writer in a recent New York Evening Telegram says:
"When one goes to the opera and sweeps the tiers of boxes with an opera-glass for a moment, the question comes: Is it proper to look? Upon careful examination and scientific computation, it is pretty certain that of the ladies at the opera in any five boxes adjoining one another, not less than one out of every three is three-quarters naked above the waist—that is, of the square inches of surface, from the waist up, three-quarters are exposed to the view and to the air. While this is true of opera-goers, of those who go to balls it is far worse. The percentage of semi-nude figures increases until fully ninety-five per cent. is reached."
This picture is not exaggerated. The other night, at the opera of "Lohengrin," given by the American Opera Company, the dresses on the stage are described as modesty itself, compared with those in the audience. The "lady" who appears half undressed at a fashionable assembly, goes to church the next morning demurely and modestly, to think gently during the sermon of the vices of her neighbors, without once reproaching herself for an immodesty which is worse than Pagan, and which, when attempted by other than respectable women, is regarded as a shameless incentive to evil thoughts and evil deeds.
Probably, if there were any women in New York of sufficient firmness and social influence to stop this ape-like imitation of usages which, aside from their grave evils, are out of keeping with the habits of life made necessary in a climate which is not at all English, the custom might be relinquished. But there is none such; and the only pause that can be given to a whirl of fashion which perilously touches hell will be number of other deaths from late hours, mental and physical lassitude, and consequent heart and lung afflictions.
What is good in English usages may be imitated with advantage. But Americans will never be thoroughly independent of England until they arrange their habits to suit a climate whose caprices are so sudden and unexpected as to deal death to the unwary.
It is regrettable that the craze for low-necked dresses should be allowed to sweep away women who are bound by their "social duties" to appear in a costume which must have been invented by one of those females whose name is unmentionable here—from whom the women who imitate them turn in horror.
Columbus and Ireland.
One of the speakers at the dinner of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in this city referred to the Irish missionaries in Iceland and to the member of the crew of the Pinta[3]—ship in which Columbus sailed from Palos—who was born in Ireland. This is astounding information.