Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1886 — Anarchism Is Insanity. [ARTICLE]

Anarchism Is Insanity.

A learned physician in Paris takes the position that anarchism and communism are a species of ins nity. The leaders of extreme social revolutions, he says, have been affected largely by insanity often taking a homicidal form". This was well shown in the case of the Paris commune of 1871. Among the communists no less than 1,700 persons M r ere found to be insane and had to be sent to the hospital for over a year. And among the leaders in that outburst, four were discovered upon examination to be hereditary lunatics, and four others had p eviously been under treatment for insanity.— Texas Sifdngs.

A Plan to Escape the Tyranny of Fashionable Dress. So let ns welcome that step of progress which introduces among men the wearing of corsets. Let ns hope that in time the stuffed cushions and the steel hoops and the length and weight of cloth will be added, too. Then they will see the absurdity of it, and maybe the system will collapse. Even women who are independent in most things cannot rebel here. They are bound hand and foot, and are helpless. And so far from being a sign of freedom, the unendurable, tailor-made dress is only an additional link in the chain of bondage. Really and truly, if women are ever to use their brains and their bodies successfully they must be physically free. Blood can never rise to the brain through a tight-laced corset. Women are simply fools to expect it. While the sex dress as nine out of every ten upon the street do, there never will be a woman statesman, or scholar, or inventor. The handful of really great women the world has seen were untrammeled by conventionalities of dress as of other things. George Sand dressed like a man. Joan-of Ar was a stable maid, with broad shoulders, splendid strong arms, and shining hair that never knew a crimping pin. A corset would have been as much ut of place upon her as upon an angel. It is all very well to talk of higher education for women. But they will never gain it while the world stands. They will never gain any intellectual prize worth having as long as they continue to dress in the present absurd and painful fashion. Dr. Richardson, of London, says so. The subject of changing the whole style of women’s dress is one well worthy the attention of social reformers. I have a plan to escape the tyranny for myself. As I walk home in my day-dream, kicking my frightful tailormade dress about my feet at every step, I picture to myself a future. There is a little farm on the river, not far from Cincinnati. There is just the spot for a pretty house upon the hill overlooking the river.. We shall build the house, two or three of us, and go there and live. We shall raise roses, and chickens, and strawberries, and Alderney cream. It is my old dream, you perceive. But there is another condition now, added by the large experience of the years. Iu summer I shall wear a short calico dress, with just as little cloth in it as possible. In winter I shall wear a flannel dress of the same pattern, and shall never have any other kind. For me, then, cities may go hang. Fashion especially may do her worst, and I shall defy and scorn her. I shall have escaped to paradise. —Eliza Archard, in Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette.