PICKINGS FROM PUNCH.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 88, 8 September 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

PICKINGS FROM PUNCH.

DELIVERANCE TROM FRENCH FASHIONS. Mr Punch~^-H.ev Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra has come here to be the Princess of Wales just in time. She will, of course, set the fashions for British ladies, hitherto copied from the French, and thus turn the tide of absurdity in costume from the abyss info which, before her seasonable arrival, it was tending to plungethem. In the meantime the women of Paris may go their own way ; and whither they are jroing you will see in a description of/ the Vanity Fair now daily held about 4 o'clock in the Bois de Houlogne, from the pen of the Parisian correspondent of the Post. "By half-past 4 o'clock, 5 " this gentleman tells us, "every variety of equipage, three or four rows deep, is moving slowly along the favorite promanade." "There are," heconiinues, " ladies of most nations, but the toilettes of all are in the very best French taste and of the most costly description." What the very best French taste in the matter of toilettes is he thus proceeds to exemplify :— A shawl costing two or three hundred guineas and nearly the same value of lace, is frequently hung about the fair sex, who occasionally descend from their carriage, and perform a very mild amount of vvalkingson the pathway." Istop here to reflect. wbatahumbugSpiritualism nmst be, since in answer to my invocation there comes not a rap on my desk from the ghost of William Cobbett to tell me what he uould have said about these expensive and useless women. However expensive women ought to be sweet creatures. Cheap is proverbially the reverse of nice Dear should be nice, then. But mark what follows : — '' And ought not pathways to be clean and dry ? The velvet and satin sweep them daily, and must carry home, one supposes, accidents souvenirs sometimes not the most pleasant." Souvenirs. Forget-me-nots, that is to say. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet ; and I suppose a souvenir or forget-me-not from the Bois de Boulogne could not be rendered more unpleasant than it is by any more specific denomination which might he given to it. However, if after the " promenade," French ladies dress for the evening, of course they do not bring souvenirs into the salmi. Ah ! Nice things require nice words to express them. J quote on i — " Bui such is fashion. We are living in an age when a lady's dress must sweep and brush the earth, and everything- on the face of the earth. 1 ' " Well, what is to be said of French ladies who like that sort of thing I There is no accounting for proclivities. Ooly one may say that ladies who delight in sweeping up souvenirs with their dresses might be expected to rejoice in the undernamed unwholesomess : — " We have not, however, got to the end of the * revivals' of toilettes, which look so pretty in Watteau's pictures. Powder is gradually dawning upon us, introduced by a sort of heraldic gold dust. We have long been accustomod lo pearl-powder, and rose de jonvence, and ere long I fear we shall entirely lose sight of the native color of the hair." Fatiah ! Alexandra to the rescue ! The Princess of Wales will put a stop — not perhaps to the use of rose de joatence and pearl-powder by old hags — but to any attempt at the introduction of " heraldic gold dust,*' or the revival of hair-powder to ' disfigure the tresses of our English girls, j Let these abominations be limited to those i ladies who sweep up souvenirs in the Bois j de Boulogne, or from the flagstones of j Coventry street. Yet, after all, Frenchwomen are our sisters, and therefore, as Lord Dundreary would say, of course Frenchmen are our brothers. Humiliating reflection ! Ah ! Professor Huxley omits the strongest argument that he could adduce to prove mankind allied to apes. Taurus.