Crinoline

Burning of the Crinolines

Fortunate it is if her skirts do not catch fire-and if the nurse does not give herself up a sacrifice together with her patient, to be burnt in her own petticoats. I wish the Registrar-General would tell us the exact number of deaths by burning occasioned by this absurd and hideous custom. But if people will be stupid, let them take measures to protect themselves from their own stupidity-measures which every chemist knows, such as putting alum into starch, which prevents starched articles of dress from blazing up.

Indecency of the Crinolines

I wish too, that people who wear crinoline could see the indecency of their own dress as other people see it. A respectable elderly woman stooping forward, invested in crinoline, exposes quite as much of her own person to the patient lying in the room as any opera dancer does on the stage. But no one will ever tell her this unpleasant truth.

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