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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1880)
tine, I 880. THE WEST SHORE. ,67 RAVAGES OF FASHION. The world moves, and while en lightened nations are not slow to eman cipate themselves from the chains of ancient llu.dldoui, the living vv outlet yet ohtains that men and women, intel ligent and philosphical in all things else pertaining to their general well being, will voluntarily endure the worst physical slavery that ever existed on earth. If vice is a monster, then is modern fashion a most uncompromising tyrant, verily ruling its subjects with a rod of iron. In the personal deeoratio.i and wear ing apparel of the day, a system of idolatry and bigotry is hourly exempli fied, most astounding to any careful and thoughtful observer. Ridiculous as many old styles would now appear, it needs but the behest of some leading votary of fashion to exhume them from the annals of the past, reinstate them in the domain of popular favor, and make them the cynosure of admiring vulgarity. The fashionable world has yet to produce a Moses through whose expert generalship we may yet be led through the wilderness of abject folly into the promised land of common sense. To improve upon Nature is the avowed object of many of the expensive fashions now in VOSrue among those who belong to the higher walks of life. No sooner does a young girl be gin t ripen into womanhood than she discovers the appalling fact that there has been some miserable error commit ted somewhere and by somebody, about her model or complexion; and thence forward it is the sole object of her lift to correct the blunder that has been made. Wholly ignorant of the first principles of physiology or the laws of health, she goes about giving new lines to what she deems her misshapen form She impudently questions the pre priety of the beautiful exterior that the great Architect has given her innocent girlhood, and calls into rccpiisition the villainous appliances of human ingenu ity to convert her yielding body Inti what in the end is nothing less than a horrid deformity. By main strengtl and awkwardness she girds her cx pending chest with plates of steel, jam her feet into abominable things that St. Crispin never invented, apes the sav ages by liedaubiiig her face with min eral poisons, and scoots up her hair into shapes of ineffable ugliness. Thus ac coutered and stuck up, she persuades herself into the silly belief that she is really beautiful and attractive. 0 shades of our dear departed grand mothers I come and deliver us from this abomination of desolation. Bat Hun is a gigantic ami far-reaching topic, and in order to thoroughly investigate it, we must do as great men and books say! examine the subject seriatim. We will begin, then, with the cosmetic absurdity. Few ladies know to what a fearful extent mineral poisons enter as princi pal ingredients into the composition of their much-esteemed face powders. It is a libel on the vegetable kingdom lo say that there are no mineral product) in the face powders so extensively sold throughout the length and breadth of our lair land. Dr. llassell, of London, is piosocut. 1 4... ...... ins a work lor which mime gviiarw tions of healty men and women will rise up and call him blessed. It may ie remembered bv our readers thai tins . . LI. . eminent chemist thorougiuy expose sme of the principal food adulterations several years ago. But the Doctor did not weary In well doing, Homned al his discoveries in regard to what unsus pecttng people put into their stomachs under the attractive guise ol 1000, M was subsequently led to examine what silly women put upon their faces. His explorations in the latter field justifies the omlnOUS assertion that there is tuny as much pure ami unscrupulous Iniquity practiced in the manufacture of the arious cosmetics as m the preparation of canned and many other kinds ol food. The lovely " violet powder," for example, so extensively sold at per funiery stores, was found to be a mo pernicious hash of active mineral pot sens. Even the popular "rice pow der," which the careful mother applies to the delicate skin of her infant, was found to contain DO less than twenty live per cent, of arsenic, and it w one day stoutly protesting that her face powder was purely a vegetable crea tion. But when the sagacious physi cian undertook to weigh a spoonful of the powder against 11 similar iiuautitv proved that several young babes li.id died from the ellects ol this powder Every physician knows that a thin delicate skin will lake up large ipianti tics of arsenic through the process absorption, and having thus gained ac cess to the various tissues of the body, its immediate effects arc very much the same as if taken into the stomach. The stylish wife of a physician was of wheaten flour, the scales would not balance, and he was obliged to treble the quantity Of Hour before it was equal weight to a spoonful of the powder. Even though a face powder is en tirely free from mineral poisons, it is no less deleterious in one respect, at ast. It is just as inslrunieulal in filling up and clogging the pores of the skin as the more objectionable com pounds. Profi I lei wig assorts that a stoppage of the pores of the skin in and unit the face is the main cause of pimples and other cutaneous eruptions, But the latter gentleman has made still more unpleasant revelation. In one specimen of toilet powder prepared by a leading perfumer of l'uris, he had liscoverud the healthy eggs of the DtttodtM JolticiioruM, an active little parasite that delights extremely well to burrow at the base of the irruptions on the faces of pretty young Indict. The Professor is of the opinon that many of thu volatile oils used to per fume cosmetics renders such compounds a fit abode for those living germs which so largely pervade our atmosphere. Prof. Chon, another capcii of Berlin, fully coincides in this interesting mat ter, with the two eminent authorities already referred to above. More of this subject in a future issue. LADIES ADULT TO MARKV. In marrying, make your own match. Do not marry any mini to get rid of him, or to oblige him, or lo save him. The man who would go to destruetioti without you, will hetpiiteas likely with you, and perhaps drag you along. Do not marry in haste, lest you repent at leisure ; do not marry for a home and a living, when by taking care of your health you can be strung enough to earn your own living. Do not let aunts, fathers or mothers sell you for money or a xition into bondage, tears and lifelong misery, which you alont must endure. Do not place yourself habitually in the society of any suitor until you have decided the question of marriage ; human walls are weak, and people often become bewildered, and do not know their error until it is too late. Get away from their influence, settle your head, and make up your mind alone. A promise may lie made in a moment or sympathy or half-delirious ecstasy, which must he redeemed through years of sorrow, toil and paiu,