OUR IMMODEST GRANDMAS
It is a popular idea that the girlhood of our grandmothers was marked by a modesty of manner, dress, and deportment which the girls of to-day might emulate with advantage. Judging, however, from the description of the girl of lialf-a-century ago, in “Fifty Years of London Society,” it would seem that our grandmothers were not models of decorum. The book is by an anonymous author, who quotes a Mrs Lynn Linton as writing of 1868: — “The girl of the period is a creature who dyes her hair and paints her face. • • whose sole idea of life is plenty of fun and luxury, and whose dress is the object of such thought and intellect as she possesses. Her main endeavour in this is to outlive her neighbours in the extravagance of fashion. “The girl of the period has done away with such moral muffishness as consideration for others, or regard for counsel and rebuke. . . .
If some fashionable woman comes out with her dress below her, shoulder blades, and a gold strap for all the sleeve thought necessary, the girl of the period follows suit next day. The imitation of the demimonde in dress . . . leads to
slang, bold talk and fastness.”
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2343, 18 October 1921, Page 4
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202OUR IMMODEST GRANDMAS Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2343, 18 October 1921, Page 4
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