APING OUR ANCESTORS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1598, 3 April 1879, Page 3

APING OUR ANCESTORS.

[“ The World.”] There is something delightfully innocent, as well as picturesque, in the scheme which is now engaging the attention of a few aesthetic and amiable ladies to revive, for the benefit of nineteenth century England, the feminine costume fashionable in classic Greece. The design forms a definite and intelligible item in the Hellenic renaissance which, in art or literature, is so conspicuous a feature of our times. Probably in a little while we may improve even upon this experiment, and seek ideas for the attire of our wives and daughters in the primitive apparel of Paradise. It may even be said that a tendency in this direction has long been visible; and when Mrs Pfeiffer tells us that she is developing b reform in dress based upon the chiton as worn by the ladies of ancient Athens, she may be thought to have executed a somewhat retrograde movement. Early last year, it seems, this excellent lady gave a ball, at which Attic costume was compulsory : and the project, then fantastically ventilated, is about to yield some practical results. A weekly contemporary is shortly to publish a full explanation of the new toilette; and Mrs Pfeiffer writes as if she really contemplated that its simplicity and economy would speedily cause it to come permanently into vogue, and to supersede the costly and elaborate clothing of to-day. It is a pity to seem to discourage so fond a delusion ; but it is necessary to ask whether Mrs Pfeiffer and her friends think that dilettante enthusiasm alone will suffice to float such a project. Our modern social history is not without the record of analogous attempts. A quarter of a century ago, and there were those who considered Bloomerism practicable. The chiton agitation is the natural successor of the Bloomer movement, and it will probably do neither more nor less than the Bloomer movement did. Unless a certain measure of fashionable patronage is forthcoming, all social reforms languish. If some recognised leader of society were to appear in the Park during the forthcoming season clad in a dress which was the facsimile of that worn by Aspasia, chitons would immediately be the rage. It is true the fashion would be ephemeral, but while it lasted it would extensively prevail. Mrs Pfeiffer seems to have misapprehended the dominant spirit of the age. Doublless she knows well enough that precisely the same enterprise which engages her fancy now was actively adopted in revolutionary France. Then, indeed, it was something more than a mere freak of fancy or eccentricity of taste. It was the outward expression cf the conviction that possessed the minds of the popular leaders that society needed reorganisation; that to bo reorganised it was imperative to begin anew, and that the best point of departure to adopt was that of the classical period. At the time of the French Revolution, the feminine costume worn was a protf sfc against the contemporary developments of society, and had really a profound moral and political significance. Who would think of accusing Mrs Pfeiffer of harboring any such subversive designs ? Who would hint that, by the compliment she pays the robe in favour with the ladies of Republican Athens, she wished to insinuate her approval of Republican institutions ? Nothing could be more harmless, innocent, or pleasing than the neo-clnssicalism of the drawing room ; and nothing, in the contrast which it suggests with the spirit of the days when classicalism was full of meaning, could better illustrate the temper of our own times. All the ideas, it may be said, that have ever animated men or women at any period of history may be seen in a subdued state of operation among us just now. Politics, art, religion, literature, society, dress, all the varied elements of each of these which an analysis of their condition at successive periods suggests, may be witnessed in the present year of grace, held in a sorb of rose-water solution. Every known theory of statesmanship, from the doctrine of the right divine of kings down to the most uncompromising tenets of Republicanism, is reflected among our latter-day political controversialists. In theology, in painting, and in letters there may bo discovered the old issues which have divided schools and given the signal for persecution, disguised by new names, and discussed in every strain of temper and language. In the same way society at large is an amalgam of every kind of ethical standard and practice, from that of the Athens of Pericles down to the England of the Regency. What holds true of these thought the Boards should got the advantage of this money. Other districts had considerable quantities of land, and it was only by levying a rate of this kind that matters could be equalised. He thought the Avon Road Board would got from the County Council the sum of some £IBOO, in addition to the amount they would receive direct from the Government. It was thought by a good many politicians that the Government subsidies would not last, and for this reason the Board had considered it would be as well for the next year or two to levy a mailing rate. The Board was even now spending £6OOO or £7OOO a year, and if they did not, get the subsidies they could not got the work dene. At present they had about £2OOO in hand. It would he a very unpleasant thing for them to go to the bank and ask for an advance at an interest of 10 per cent. This was the full explanation of the reason why the Board had considered they were justified in acting a shilling rate. They

must remember too thht they now had the Styx and the Eapitone creek to keep clean, although he was very glad to say that this work would in future be done out of the funds of the County Council. With regard to the £7OO which had been spent in one part of the district Bingsland been held upon the subject, and the Board felt it necessary to do the work. They must remember, too, that certain landowners were giving the Board land for nothing for the purpose of improving the district. The Board had not considered it right to go through the Church Property Trustees’ land, though they could have done so by law. He believed that the Selwyn County Council would contribute to pay for a road to the new cemetery, and he did not know that it would not be a proper thing to ask the Christchurch City Council to vote something towards it too With regard to the Knightstown road, an effort would be made to do the work required as speedily as possible. If they got the road widened the district would be very greatly improved. He believed that in about six months from the present time they would find the district in a Very greatly improved condition.