There is a chance for some manufacturer to come to the front. Meanwhile, our girls will go on wearing linen and catching colds; and I do assure my readers that they would be both astonished and shocked were I to tell them the average number of fatal illnesses brought on annually in England from neglect of proper precautions for the preservation of health.
But if winter hath its dangers from cold, and wet, and frost, neither is summer exempt.
Would I have girls wear wool in summer? Undoubtedly.
Wool is not only a protection against cold, but against intense heat as well. It is a go-between, so to speak.
We all know that thatched houses are warm in winter and cool in summer, but possibly the words of Stanley, the great African traveller, may be new to many, although the truth they contain rests upon the same natural basis as that about thatched houses. I cannot give the exact words of this truly great man, but they are to this effect:—
“The only way a European can withstand the intense heat of tropical Africa is by wearing garments of wool.”
This is very easily understood. Wool is a non-conductor. In winter, therefore, it conserves or retains the internal or animal heat, and in summer it will defend the skin and the blood from becoming fevered by the scorching rays of the sun.
I do not expect my youngest readers to be interested in one-half of what I am now writing, but I most earnestly desire their mothers and guardians to lay my words to heart, and to act upon them, so that they may not hereafter have to say, with sighs of regret—
“I wish I had.”
There is one other little matter I wish to point out to my thoughtful mamma-readers, with regard to clothing, and that is, the absurdity of not having dress, either for boys or girls, made the same thickness at the back as at the front.