Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1891 — THE MOVEMENT FAILED. [ARTICLE]

THE MOVEMENT FAILED.

An Attempt to Repreas Extravagance In Dress Among Hired Girls. There is a young matron living in one of the small cities in the interior of New York State who doubtless, in her moments of honest telf-conununion, wishes she had let well enough, or ill enough alone. She undertook recently, single-handed, a crusade from which many an older and bolder woman might have and has shrunk. Her sense of propriety and the eternal fitness of things was wounded by the attire of her own and her friends' women servants. Gay colors, silk and satin fabrics, flowers, feathers, ribbons—all the fripperies which the soul of Bridget delights in—she felt were neither suitable nor becoming, and she determined to bring about a change. To this end she drew up and circulated for signatures among her friends a petition or resolution which should bind every signer not to employ or retain in her service any maid who would not consent to restrict her. attire to certain prescribed limits, which were, practically, plainly made dark towns with cap and apron when on uty, and nothing better than a woolen Sown of simple design for Sunday and ay off use. : - But, alas, for the loyalty of friendsl Although many, indeed most of the recipients of the pledge had joined with its author in complaints of the evil it strove to mitigate, when it came to taking a bold stand in the matter their courage was lacking. The paper made its round and returned signerless. But it was not without result One of those whom it was designed to educate got a knowledge of its existence and mission. The story spread from kitchen to kitchen, gaining force and length as it flew. The maids attempted a coalition and succeeded better than the mistresses. A boycott was declared against the young matron who foolishly thought to make headway against the independence of American help, and her corps of servants is now secured from outside places. A complement and moral to this story, says a writer in the Sun, is the recent experience of a Brooklyn lady. Christmas brought her a coveted sealskin sacque, of which her colored nurse was, as events proved, a most sincere admirer. The maid was about to purchase a winter cloak, and the horror of the mistress may be fancied when she appeared in it. Although of coarse brown plush, in color, style and general effect it was the sac-simile of of her own costly fur garment. The lengths of the two cloaks did not vary half an inch; they were both of sacque shape, and so identical in appearance that at a glance they appeared to be twin garments. To increase the wretchedness of the situation, the mistress was in mourning, and the maid had a black cloth dress for usual wear. It whs the lady's habit on every pleasant day to take her nurse and baby over to spend an hour with her invalid mother, and to do so she must traverse a couple of blocks of a fashionable thoroughfare. One ordeal was enough. She tried to induce the nurse to exchange her garment for one of another style, offering to pay any loss she might sustain, but Topsy was indignant, and clung to her elegance. Then, as the sealskin could not go, the maid had to. The nurse lost a good place and the mistress a faithful servant through incompatibility —not of temper, but of clothes —all of which the young matron may read with complacency.