(From Willmer and Smith's European Times, August 2.)
WHATEVER excites attention on the other side of the Atlantic, must necessarily attract interest here, and, in the absence of more striking facts, discussion is now provoked at home about the " Bloomer costume" of the ladies, and the "enfranchisement of women." The subject is highly transatlantic, and involves questions of the deepest political and social gravity. It seems to have been taken up in certain parts of the United States, without any apparent mixture of that serious comicality which forms so peculiar a trait in the American character, and which, in this country, comes under the designation of "bathos."
With regard to the "Bloomer costume," we occasionally hear of its breaking out, as used to be said of the cholera, in certain parts of our own country. At Harrogate, for instance, several ladies are said to have adopted the short jacket or tunic and the garb for the extremities recognised as the female costume in Turkey. In picturesque effect, we can readily conceive that a fine woman, so arrayed, will be seen to very great advantage, from the full development of her personal charms. But "figure" is an essential element in costume ; and, as nature is not equally bountiful in this respect to all her children, modern taste has contrived appliances to hide, by the art of the tailor and the mantua-maker, the want of physical development under which many persons labour. Little doubt can exist that sadly too little attention is paid by parents to the physical education of their offspring, and, if the new female costume be the means of concentrating attention more closely on this important subject, the invasion of which we hear so much, will bring in its train some unmistakable advantages.
In dress and in manners, mankind are so much the slaves of habit, that we are too often induced to vote as absurd and ridiculous what might appear on a closer investigation, to be both rational and necessary. The modesty, so much and so deservedly prized in the female character, causes many absurd anomalies in the habits of the sexes which press heavily on the position and even on the health of women. A romping lad, who plays at cricket and other outdoor exercise, inures the system to hardihood, and is developing the physical powers which make him a healthy and a useful member of society. With girls the case is otherwise. Their amusements are, for the most part, sedentary within doors, and they suffer correspondingly. In everything that is not positively vicious, no good reason can be assigned why the outdoor amusements of the sexes, whether in high or in humble life, should not be pretty uniform ; but they never even distantly approximate until the world ceases to dislike what is called, by way of opprobrium, a masculine women. Such a designation would alone sour the affections of the most sentimental lover. We are too prone to associate beauty with a delicate form and a languid expression. Even rustic beauty, which expresses the highest condition of physical existence, is repugnant to the erroneous notions which novelists and poets, for the sake of dramatic effect, have studiously instilled into the national mind. But, without healthy mothers, it is in vain to look for healthy offspring; and the subject can only be comprehended in its vastness by imagining a nation of puny and sick creatures, invaded and overcome by a more stalwart race, of whose matrons it might he said, in the language of the poet, that—
"Like Grecian mothers, they gave birth to men."
The physiological is not less important than the moral aspect of the case, and in every point of view, the subject is one of deep and abiding interest. That the race is deteriorating in this country is, we fear, patent, from the fact that the standard of admission into the army has been twice reduced of late years. A crowded population in the towns, constantly recruited from the country districts, and employed late and early in a species of labour very unfavourable to longevity must, in the course of time, work lamentable results, unless counteracting effects are brought out by such discussions as those which have been recently raised in various parts of the United States.
The "rights of women" form a pendent to the physical aspect of the case. At the first blush, it offends all our notions of propriety and dignity, to hear or think of women possessing the franchise, sitting in congress, making speeches, becoming lawyers, and exercising the functions of political power. Men shrink for the most part instinctively from what is called "a strong minded women," or "a blue stocking." But without pursuing this subject through all the ramifications to which it would lead, it will be admitted, we presume, by the most fastidious in such matters, that superior mental training does not incapacitate women from fulfilling the highest duties to which as wives and mothers they are called. How far the possession of intellect would warrant the extension to them of equal political rights with the ruder vessels of humanity, we are not very likely to be called upon to discuss in this country, at least for some time to come ; but in America, where political power is based exclusively upon numbers, the question stands on altogether different grounds, and the fact that the movement for the "rights of women" has already identified itself with the abolition of slavery, shows that the issue is too vitally important, and has taken too strong hold on the sympathies of our American cousins, to be permitted quietly to drop. The political capital which can be manufactured out of the movement is the best reason for its agitation. One thing, however, is certain that there are many callings and professions for which women are as naturally qualified as men. The professions of medicine is one. It is deeply to be regretted that the sphere for the employment of clever women is so limited. The moral consequences of' this limitation are apparent at a glance. In physic, and more especially in matters affecting their own sex, the employment of women seems much more natural and delicate. For female doctors, the American papers tell us, there is at present an extraordinary demand on the western continent.
Altogether, the discussions which this question will raise cannot fail to be at least interesting; and, whatever turn it may take, must result in good, by the diffusion of sounder and more rational views than have hitherto existed. As regards the "Bloomer costume," although it is said to have been seen in the streets of Liverpool we would stake our existence on the fact that the ladies who adopt it are not the least interesting and lovely of her Majesty's liege subjects.
Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer 1852, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91931062
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