To the Editors.
When any part of the female dress is not only useless, but greatly inconvenient, both abroad and at home, I think I may venture to find fault with it, without incurring the displeasure of the sensible part of your fair correspondents, who I am sure, are often obliged through fear of being singular, to adopt those fashions their reason condemns. This article I mean to take notice of is the hoop, which is now so universally worn, that it is impossible for a person to walk the streets, without being turned off the pavement, and in danger of being run over by coaches, drays, &c.
Was this fashion confined to gentry alone, it might be allowed without much inconvenience, but since they are worn by all ranks of people, from the highest to the lowest, I think some method should be taken to check the growing evil, or (as good may frequently be deduced from evil) to turn it to public advantage.—With this view, I would advise government to impose a tax on every hoop, except those for the use of the stage, where they are not misapplied, but used to add dignity to the character, which intention is now greatly lessened by our frequently seeing females of the lower class, walking the streets in a hoop, wide enough for an air baloon.
I shall now make a few remarks on their private inconvenience, which, I doubt not, many a master of family has experienced besides myself.
You must know, gentlemen, I am a man of a tolerable fortune, family, and connections, but not sufficient to authorize my children to aim at all the extravagant fashions of the age. I have four daughters, who (forgive the encomiums of a parent) are really sensible, good kind of girls, but have been induced, by the example of their superiors and equals, to adopt this worse than useless fashion.
At first their hoops were small, and consequently less inconvenient, but they are now grown to such an enormous size, that I must be obliged, (if they do not retrench them) to leave my house on the account, as the rooms, where we could formerly move very conveniently, are now too small to admit of our stirring, without incommoding each other.
The stair-case, which is rather narrow, is become (if not wholly useless) extremely dangerous to the female part of my family, as they can neither ascend, nor descend in any other direction than sideways.
My tables must be changed for larger, my post-chaise for a coach, in short, the whole system of my affairs must be turned topsy-turvey.—How mortifying the reflection, to be obliged to quit a habitation, which prudence and content have long found sufficiently large, for one where folly may rage uninterrupted.
And to these inconveniences, that of being obliged to provide new gowns, &c. the other beings consequently too short, when so much extended.
Many other inconveniences, both public and private, might be pointed out, but I hope what I have advanced (if you will insert it) will be sufficient to persuade my own daughters, at least (if not wholly to lay side their hoops) to appropriate the dimensions of them to the size of my apartments, and to convince them that extreme fashion is extreme folly.