The Battle of the Crinolette

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 163, 31 July 1886, Page 5

The Battle of the Crinolette

Like the Roman Consul after Canme, the Parisian modistes may say, "Wo have fought a great battle and lost it." The cauee of strife was the machine for the annihilation of female beauty which is called the '" crinolette." From the ateliers of Paris the word went forth that the ladies of the elegant world were to don the monstrouß and inconvenient structure. The women of France and other countries heard and obeyed. But the women of Great Britain (and on thi3 occasion Ireland was ■with us) rebelled. The weaker sister yielded to the fashion-plates ; but the leaders of ton in London and Dublin snapped their fingers at their milliners and declined to make themselves hideous aDd uncomfortable. The struggle was desperate, but in the end the women of England prevailed, as they always do when they really set their minds on anything Steady a«i the Guards at Waterloo, they stood the charge-? of M. Worth and all hia light cavalry ; -and the result was even more creditable than on the ever-memorable 18th June, because there was no Blucher to take the hosts of Gaul en fianc. Baffled by British endurance, the French gave way ; and now Paris itself cries " Surtout au bas dea japes."