ABSTRACT
One of the most curious circumstances connected with the subject of reform in dress is this: As soon as any one says some considerable change is advisable, the world at large – either from excess of imaginative power or the want of it – exclaims aloud that that person wishes women to wear men’s clothes. ‘Bloomerism’ lurks in many a memory. Most people must have remarked in reading the accounts of fires in theatres that one of the first things recorded as happening is that ‘several women fainted,’ as soon as the crowd began to rush. Some ladies say that unless they wear stays they could not wear enough clothes to keep the legs warm from the drag and pressure round the waist.
