ON THE COMMON SENSE OF WOMEN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2354, 21 November 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

ON THE COMMON SENSE OF WO MEN.

“Bless you, miss, women ain’t got no common sense.”

“Oh, William!” “No, miss, not when it comes to the pint—no real common sense.” I -forget exactly when William, the gardener, made that remark to me, but it was on the occasion, of some great domestic turmoil, possibly when Tommy fell into the water tank, or Aunt Olivia was married; but I remember wo wer© ail buzzing ■ about like a set of distracted bees.

I was young at the time, and naturally indignant; but with maturer years und some study of the subject have come the conclusion that William was not so very- far wrong, after all. Let us judge them by dress; and that, 1 take it, is a subject that every woman knows, or thinks slie knows, something about. She ought to, for it occupies it least threefourths of the average woman’s conversation. No one can travel in any boat, • tram, or train without being struck by this. Is there not a popular fallacy that mum occupies a great place in woman’s thoughts and .conversation? Let no ma.n- flatter himself on that point any longer. When very young our conversa don may be somewhat tinged with "And I said to him,” “And he said to uio,” bub that soon goes, and dross reigns sole queen of our hearts. This being so, we should know something about it. Aunt Olivia says I,don’t, also thut I am a dowdy; so we will take Aunt Olivia herself, who certainly ought to be u great authority, and test her common sense on the matter.

“Why do you put Elsie into those cumbersome frocks ?” I remonstrated one day. it was during the Kate Greenaway rage. “She is only 4. Surely it is bad enough to have long skirts dangling about our heels when we are grown up; you might leave her free to run, at least while she is young.” . , . Aunt Olivia looked at me with pitying contempt. “Oh, I think those frocks arc ju s t sweet. I love to sec children in them. Besides, it keeps their poor little legs warm. How would von like to' go about on a cold day with bare legs, and frocks up to your knees?” Aunt Olivia spoke with so much conviction that I celt almost a brute for suggesting such a thing as exposing the poor little legs; but why should Elsie’s legs have been .kept warm at 4 when Janet, who came later, had. at the same age, frocks above the knees and three-quarter socks; while Marion (later still) follows the modern vogue of bare logs, sandals, and skirts cut so short that she shows her very thighs. When I make -remarks of this sort to Aunt Olivia she says, “‘Fashions change, ;ny dear; we improve; you don’t move on with the times.” "Which may be quite true, but does not prove that she, and hundreds of women like her, dress their children with any real common sense. Nor is it onlv in the matter of long or short skirts. Take those little American hoods, for instuuce—close about the car.-, with no protection for either head or eyes—could anything _ be more senseless for a climate like Sydney, summer or winter, where Hie sun is "always apt to shine To come to our own clothes. We have two arms, both of which work easily in front; and because it is easy and natural to button im a gown in front the. great majority of us at present prefer_to tug and wrestle to fasten our clothes at the back; and many a woman wlu> would blush to leave her room with her dress all unfastened in front will rush about the house, gaping from neck to waist at the back, frantically hunting lor someone to “do me up. please!” “Surely,” 1 say to Aunt Olivia, ’’it .is aping a position that does not belong to us. If wo were wealthy and had a maid to dress ns, it might be different; but is it sensible to have clothes that we can’t get into by ourselves? Yet hundreds of women do this. Don’t yqu remember that woman coming from Fremantle on the Victoria, and how she used every night to squeak plaintively from her cabin, ‘Stewardess, stewardess. Will vou come and fasten my frock? Stewardess, stewardess. Rica so come and do me up,’ and liow my brother used to double up with laughter whenever lie heard her;' Can you imagine men having their coats, to li-.ipk and eye down the back, so that they could not possibly fasten them without another man’s help?” Aunt Olivia looks pensive. “They look so much smarter,” she murmurs, -which certainly is. true, but you see, she is not answering my objections. J. Avas coming home alone one night about a quarter to- eleven, and presently I heard short feminine footsteps hurrying after me. I am not nervous myself, but thinking perhaps the woman behind me was, I slackened my pace to allow her the feeling of companionship if she felt so inclined. To my surprise she caught up to me and gasped oift, “Oh, would you mind unfastening my frock?” 1 think I gasped in my turn at such n request from .an utter stranger. “Oh, I can’t undo it myself. It’s hooked,” she explained, “and it’s so .late, and everyone will be in bed, and J. can t wake them up. You don’t mind?” “Come under this lamp-post,” said I, and I turned her back to the light, and there at a quarter to eleven at night, I obediently unhooked her blouse; and) then; with profuse thanks and a gaping back, she hurried along her road, whilst I pursued my way -musing. Aunt Olivia says this is a very rare case; but I think to a good many women something of the sort lias occurred, and it- is either some such desperate alternative or a case of deep in your clothes. But what I want to know is—is it common sense? . A few years ago trains were m fashion. It did "not matter that cleanliness, comfort, and convenience all spoke on the other side, trains were in fashion, and trains must bo worn —old, young, rich, poor, the ilady or fashion, the worker, the idler, there was hardly a woman that did not trail about tlie streets .in long drosses; thus, if she held up her dress properly every woman was deprived of the rise of one arm. If an occasion came when she was compelled to use that arm, down her dress must go into mud and dust. Ob, me! the skirls I have seen sweeping Hants, trains, steamer*? and streets ! Aaid certain it is, that if fashion again decreed that train's should be worn .in the streets, no common sense woiul save us from that dirty practice. I oim not a desperate admirer of mankind generally, but in this, I think men have the advantage, oupgoging 'for men tke fashion came in

of trains dangling at the end trousers leg, or two inch “sinding heels” in their boots; some lew “Johnnies” or extra fashionable young men might wear these atrocities, but the vast majority of men would go placidly on their way, their trousers clear of mud, and their boots with low heels, and comfortable honest soles. And imagine., a man giving up his pockets! Yet we have (lone this, almost to a woman—and why To show our sense find refinement, I suppose; when wo leave purses about on hull tables,, counters, trams, or trains, and drop sod-, ed handkerchiefs thick -as leaves hi Vnllombrosa. Aunt Olivia holds her head high, and says no lady drops a soiled handkerchief, to which 1 retort that a good many ladies’ daughters do. Ask any teacher of a girls’ school how she enjoys at the end of the day the pleasing task of picking up the handkerchiefs dropped by her careless pupils. . . My father was an optimist who used to say, “Educate the women; teach them the laws of physiology, and they will cease to tighten their waists, or to- throw their bodies out of gear and distort their treet by those ■hideous high heels,” but lie was mistaken. They have Gteon teaching physiology in the schools for years now, and never were toes more pointed nor heels more appalling than they wore last year.

No, it is not health or common sense that guides women, it- is merely fashion. If a fashion happens to be sensible we follow it and rejoice; if it happens otherwise we follow it, perhaps with a groan from the more sensible ones, but- still like a flock oi geese, we follow it.