Volume 98 — THE ROOT OF THE MATTER.
Reading edition
(The Typical Woman's Reply to the Arguments of the Rational Dress Society.)
My dear Lennox Browne, and my good Dr. Smith, There is probably truth, there is certainly pith, In your Kensington talk about Rational Dress. Dr. Garson and Miss Leffler-Arnim also, Talk sound common sense, but they'll find it no go; The Crusade they have started can't meet with success. No, sage Viscountess Harberton, sweet Mrs. Stopes, You had better not nourish ridiculous hopes About "rationalising" our frocks and our shoes. There is just one invincible thing, and that's Fashion! That object of every true woman's chief passion, 'Tis vain to attack, and absurd to abuse. You may say what you please about feminine "togs," That they're ugly, unhealthy, are burdens or clogs, Too high, or too low, or too loose, or too tight, There is just one reply (but 'tis more than enough) To such "rational," but most irrelevant stuff:— If not in the Fashion, a Woman's a Fright!!!
From the Zoo.—The Tapir, the Daily Telegraph stated in one of the paragraphs of its useful and amusing diary of "London Day by Day,"—"The Tapir," at the Zoological Gardens, is a specimen of a species now "verging on the brink of extinction. He was an old Tory; the world changes, but change he would not." He should be known as the "Red Tape-ir."
The Seas-on.—Mr. J. L. Toole, until he reaches Australia.
A WOMAN'S REASON.
Cousin Jack. "Then why did you Marry him, Effie?" Effie. "Oh, well—I wanted to see the Paris Exhibition, you know!"