Highlights from the Girl's Own Paper Online

13 January, 1900 - 'The Face and Its Blemishes' by the New Doctor - Acne (Part Two: Treatment)

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For Part One, click the appropriate tag below.

Since acne is a local disease dependent upon local affection, it is by local means that it should be treated. It is our belief that constitutional treatment of any kind and dieting and internal medication are alike without any effect upon true acne.

The proper treatment is acne is really very satisfactory if properly carried out for a sufficiently long period. The condition is one which lasts off and on for seven to ten years, and it is impossible to put a stop to it in a day or two. The treatment must be carried out for two or three weeks at first, and then for shorter periods at intervals, should the affection return.

It is a great point to prevent the formation of pustules, if possible, for each acne pustule leaves a permanent scar.

Since the affection starts by blocking of the sebaceous glands, absolute cleanliness of the face is essential. Persons liable to acne should wash their faces frequently in warm water, and only use the best toilet soap. It is exceedingly important only to use soap that is absolutely reliable. Good soaps are antiseptic and therefore do good to acne, but bad soaps are either caustic or made from putrid fat, and are irritating and not antiseptic.

Since sulphur is par excellence the remedy for acne, a good sulphur soap is far preferable to any other. It is, however, almost impossible to get a good sulphur soap. Most of the samples that we have seen have either been like balls of sand, or else contained such a minute trace of sulphur that their value from this ingredient is not increased one atom. There is an excellent opening for a really nice sulphur soap containing a fair proportion of fine sulphur, and a good toilet soap as the basis. Why some of our enterprising soap manufacturers have not put such a soap on the market we cannot understand, for the demand for it is considerable.

Rubbing the face with a fairly rough towel after washing is an excellent way of removing the dried secretion which is plugging the sebaceous glands. You must rub the face with caution. There is no need to rub hard, or with a very rough towel, else you may do more harm than good. Moreover, you must be exceedingly careful, if you have any pustules upon your face, not to diffuse their contents and rub them into the face elsewhere, for if you do, other pustules will for certain be formed there.
Face massage is used for the same purpose as rubbing the face with a rough towel. We must say that massage has certainly no advantage over the towel. Face massage is exceedingly expensive to have done, and it is not easily performed by oneself. It is not a form of treatment that is often of service.
One of the most effectual ways of getting rid of miliums and comedones is squeezing them out. This treatment is the most radical of all, and is certainly most valuable. You should not squeeze out too many at a time, not more than four or five of the most prominent ones. There are numerous wonderful instruments and contrivances used for removing blackheads, but none is half as good as clean fingernails. It is an open question whether it is advisable to squeeze out the pustules, which are so frequently met with in acne. Personally we think that it is right to do so, if you are careful and clean. You will fequently find it stated that, when you have once squeezed out a comedone, the gland will not again become plugged. Such a statement is absolutely opposed to fact. The sebaceous glands which have become blocked are particularly liable to go wrong again.

We have already stated that we do not believe that internal treatment nor constitutional measures have the slightest effect upon acne; but one form of general treatment is of great value, not because it improves the general health - because acne occurs mainly in those who are absolutely healthy - but because it has a distinct local action. The measure we refer to is fresh country or sea air. Fresh air and sunlight are valuable in the treatment of acne, because they kill the various microbes which lurk about the face, and so minimise the risk of the spots becoming pustules.

The local applications which are used for acne are numerous. Some of them are excellent, some worthless, and most are injurious. The local application which is by far the most valuable is sulphur. Sulphur is not only an antiseptic but it acts directly upon the outer skin causing it to become soft and readily removed. It therefore tends to destroy the plugs which fill up the sebaceous glands. The sulphur is best used as an ointment. The sulphur ointment of the pharmacopeia is too strong and coarse for most girls' faces, and it is best to use it diluted with an equal quantity of lanoline or cold cream.

The sulphur ointment should be applied every night to the places where the spots are most numerous. It may be washed off in the morning with hot soap and water. Sulphur occasionally causes the skin to become rough and scaly for a short time.

Many other preparations are used, but sulphur is so much the best of all that it is unnecessary to mention any others.

For the roughness left after acne or for the scaliness due to the sulphur, or for the natural greasiness which is invariably present on the faces of those subject to acne, glycerine and rosewater or glycerine and lime juice may be used. With these exceptions, cosmetics altogether should be strictly avoided.

Steaming the face has lately come into fashion for the cure of acne. The face is exposed to hot steam for several minutes and is then rubbed with a dry towel. The treatment certainly does good, but whether as a result of the steam or the rubbing or both we cannot say at present.

Acne is not the only common complaint due to the affection of the sebaceous glands. Dandruff or seborrhoea is another common sebaceous disease. It is an annoying and intractable complaint dependent upon some alteration in the sebaceous glands which causes them to secrete a thin albuminous fluid instead of the normal thick sebum. The thin secretion dries in scales and does not nourish nor oil the hair, which consequently becomes dry, brittle and lustreless. As it is an affection of the head and not of the face, we need not further discuss it here.

But persons who are subject to dandruff are frequently troubled by patches of scurfy skin on their faces, especially on the cheeks and round the mouth. These patches are disfiguring and sometimes itch intolerably. They are seborrhic eczema, a form of eczema which occurs as a remote result of seborrhoea. These patches are readily inoculated from place to place. We have seen the body almost completely covered by this form of eczema, all due to inoculations by the fingers from a small patch upon the face. Besides this, patches of this eczema tend to spread all round without external help. Seborrhic eczema readily yields to treatment with sulphur or calamine ointment.

There is a complaint of the complexion known familiarly as "grog blossom" and scientifically as "acne rosacea" which really is secondary to dietetic indiscretions, and is therefore the first affection we have noticed which is not a purely local trouble. This complaint embraces a wide selection of troubles from a slight redness of the nose after meals to complete purple discolouration of the whole of the face. Pustules are frequently present and constitute the "grog blossom" proper, but they are no essential part of the disease and are secondary local inoculations.

Although its household name would suggest that the disease is dependent upon alcoholism, it is certainly not always due to over indulgence in alcohol, nor is it the typical complexion of the hard drinker. The condition is secondary to chronic catarrh of the stomach and throat. The congestion spreads from the stomach up the gullet to the throat, thence to the nose and then on to the face.

Alcohol causes acne rosacea because it causes chronic congestion of the stomach. In women the abuse of tea is the commonest cause of red noses and even of the more advanced form of acne rosacea. This complaint yields to proper dietetic and local treatment, sometimes readily, sometimes with great reluctance. The dietetic treatment is that of the indigestion which has caused it: the local treatment is the application of mild antiseptic ointments.

13 January, 1900 - 'The Face and Its Blemishes' by the New Doctor - Acne (Part One - The Condition)

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The most important of all the blemishes of the complexion is undoubtedly acne. The cause of nearly all pimples and spots on the face, acne is an affection which gives trouble and annoyance to nearly everyone.

Acne is an affection of the sebaceous glands, and to fully understand its causes and treatment we must briefly review the functions of the sebaceous glands themselves.
By the side of each hair root, two small glands are situated. These glands secrete a thick oil, not unlike very thick cream in appearance. This oil, which is the natural grease of the hair, is necessary to maintain the hair in health, and to prevent it from splitting. the secretion is called sebum and the glands which secrete the sebum are called the sebaceous glands.

We have before told you that the face is covered with fine hairs. Each of these hairs has two sebaceous glands to oil it. Now, when a child has passed her fifteenth year and is on the threshold of adult life, the hairs on her face take on a rapid growth, and in this comparatively sudden growth the sebaceous glands share. If all went well, the glands would increase in regular ratio with the hairs, and there would be no acne spots on the face. But everything goes well, but seldom for extremely few persons pass from fourteen to twenty-five without developing, at all events, one acne spot.

The beginning of trouble is that in one gland the sebum dries over the entrance and converts the gland into a closed sac. The gland still continues to secrete, for all the glands in the body will go on working till they are destroyed. The gland still works and still secretes sebum, but the latter cannot get out, and so collects in the gland and gradually distends it.

Upon the surface the distended gland shows but as a small white body about as big as a pin's head, and is called a "milium" or "whitehead". If the milium be squeezed between the fingers, the mass of dried sebum which is plugging the mouth of the gland is forced out, and the white semi-solid secretion follows in a long worm-like thread. This has given rise to the idea that the sebum is really a worm, and whiteheads are frequently called skin worms, especially in advertisements for quack remedies.

The milium or whitehead is therefore the beginning of acne. The condition may stop here; the milium may be squeezed out, or the plug which closes its orifice may be accidentally displaced, and the gland will then return to its normal condition. But usually other changes occur before long. The plug of dried secretion which is filling up the entrance may become infected with one of the colour producing bacteria and become blackened. The spot is now called a "blackhead" or "comedone".

There is a widespread belief in the public mind that comedones only occur on the faces of persons who do not wash themselves sufficiently. This is a thoroughly false doctrine; there is no doubt that the colouring of the blackhead is neither dirt, nor is it due to dirt; it is the product of the growth of certain organisms.

Like the milium, the blackhead may be squeezed out either by accident or design, and the gland may return to the normal condition, or it may go on to a further stage of the affection of acne.

If a milium or comedone is left alone and is neither squeezed out nor inoculated with germs, it will continue to grow indefinitely and in time may form an immense tumour. Such a tumour is called a sebaceous cyst - that is, a hollow growth filled with sebum. By the public these growths are called "wens". They are exceedingly common, especially on the head and back. They may grow to an immense size, equal to the head of a child in bulk. They are frequently multiple.

But another calamity may overtake a milium or comedone which, though less annoying to the possessor than a sebaceous cyst, is more detrimental to the sebaceous gland, for it usually ends by destroying it altogether. The sebaceous gland, being full of sebum and having its mouth plugged, readily becomes attacked by micro-organisms which convert the gland into a small abscess or acne pustule.

Wherever you squeeze out a milium or a comedone, a small round hole is left which is distinctly visible to the naked eye. This hole is the dilated mouth of the gland and will gradually get smaller as the gland itself returns to the normal condition. From this dilated mouth the secretion runs away in large quantities, and gives the skin a greasy appearance when wet and a scaliness when dry. This abnormal secretion will also stop after a short time.

Whenever a milium or comedone is attacked by organisms it is rapidly converted into a small abscess. the matter from the abscess is either squeezed out or else opens of itself, and the whole gland is extruded. A scar is invariably left wherever an acne pustule has been. The matter from any pustule is of a highly infective character, and one small acne spot contains sufficient organisms to inoculate every sebaceous gland in the body. This is the true explanation of the well observed fact that pustules on the face frequently recur.

Having briefly glanced at the essential points in the pathology of acne, let us now turn our attention to the consideration of the causes and clinical history of the condition.

Acne is a disease of the sebaceous glands, and therefore we should expect it to manifest itself in those places where the sebaceous glands are most numerous, and at that time of life when they are most physiologically active.

In both sexes, at about the age of fifteen the hairs on the face, which before were insignificant, suddenly start to grow with great vigour. The sebaceous glands have to keep pace with the hairs, so that it is at that period when acne is most frequent. And as the hairs of the face of men grow with far greater rapidity and vigour than they do in women, so is acne infinitely more common in young men than in young women.

Acne is rare before the fourteenth year and it is uncommon after thirty. It is a condition almost confined to adolescence and early adult life. It is a local disease of the sebaceous glands and has nothing to do with the state of the blood. Its most frequent seats are the forehead, the temples, the chin and the sides of the mouth; but sometimes it covers the whole of the face, and not very uncommonly it spreads all over the body. But since it is a disease of the sebaceous glands, it therefore cannot occur where there are no hairs. The skin of the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet are the only places where acne spots cannot occur, for they are the only parts of the body destitute of hair.

(To be concluded in Part Two: Treatment.)

6 January, 1900 - Varieties - 'How She Signed the Cheque'

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Because girls are stupid, LOL.

The other day a young lady, the daughter of a well-known millionaire, visited a jeweller's shop and selected a turquoise and diamond ring valued at fifty pounds. She made out her cheque for that sum and handed it to the assistant.

The alert young man glanced at it. "There is a mistake here, I think," said he, with an apologetic smile.

The young lady flushed and asked if the cheque was not the right amount. She was told it was, but:-

"But what?" she exclaimed haughtily. "Do you mean that my cheque is not acceptable?"

The assistant mildly acknowledged that he knew quite well who the young lady was, but explained that the cheque was not made out just as it should be, and he handed it back.

The girl ran her eye over it and then turned a deep crimson.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "I see!" And then she proceeded to make out another cheque.

She had signed the first one:- "Your own sweetheart, Jessie."

10 April, 1886 - Answers to Correspondents - Miscellaneous

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Ouch.

GINGER:- What do you mean by "some one"? The best way to make your brothers and sisters care for you is to be unselfish, thoughtful and helpful for them, and sweet-tempered. If we had a recipe for quickly making you thinner we should decline to give it. We fear you are a very weak-minded little girl.
A "PLEASANT" INQUIRER:- We wish we could, on our part, return the compliment, and believe you to be an "imaginary" correspondent, as you are so rude a little girl. We do not care to answer the questions contained in such disrespectful epistles as yours. We recommend you to procure a spelling book.

12 December, 1885 - 'Money Obligations' by Ardern Holt

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In which Mr Holt mansplains personal finance. Autres temps, autres moeurs etc, but over a hundred years later you can still all but smell the condescension wafting up off the pages. On the one hand it's great that it's 1885 and we have an article addressing personal finance as something young women have the autonomy to consider at all; on the other it's all very well to finger-shake about spending but holy shit the amount of stuff that women had to afford for themselves if there wasn't a father or husband to provide the means.

There is a good deal more mischief done in this world by want of thought than from malice propense and this remark more particularly applies to matters relating to money, especially when they concern women. As a rule, women are not only careless, but extremely ignorant about money matters, such ignorance being more culpable than ever now that the recent Married Women's Property Act recognises that the fair sex are capable of managing their own affairs and, moreover, gives them the power to do so.

For the first time they are made legally responsible for their own acts. It they over spend, their husbands are no longer liable, and their creditors can come upon their own separate estate for payment. They may invest their own money at will, provided it is not vested in trustees; they may trade on their own responsibility, and they may go to law on their own account without the intervention of their husbands. If, then, as married women, such grave liabilities will in the future rest on women's soulders, they cannot begin too early to learn the value of money, and the duties which its possession entails.

Every girl, to my thinking, ought to have an allowance for dress and her own small personal expenses proportional to her position in life, for it is the only way by which they will realise what money will do, how far it will go, and how much art there is in the manner of spending it.

Taking for granted, then, that my girl readers have an allowance I should advise them, simultaneously with obtaining it to invest in an account book then to sit down quietly and dot down on a piece of paper what the items of their expenditure are likely to be in the year and quarter, and how to apportion the sum to their wants. Twenty pounds, ten pounds - even five pounds - seems a large sum of money when you have it for the first time, and do not quite realise how far it has to go and how quickly it will slip away when the sovereigns are changed to shillings and sixpences. But forethought and pre-arrangement do wonders, and enable you to buy twice as much as you otherwise would, or else you are very likely to invest in a new dress or a new mantle, or perhaps only two or three pairs of shoes, which seemed cheap and desirable, and so take up a much larger share of your income than you can afford. There is an old saying "Take care of the pence, and the shillings will take care of themselves" and on this theory I always begin with the little things that must be had, and see first which of them are absolutely necessary.

For example, I should begin on a long slip of paper by apportioning a certain sum to gloves, shoes, ribbons, collars, cuffs, laces, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, parasols, flowers and other such knick-knacks of dress; then pass on to underclothing, hats, bonnets and veils, dresses - morning and evening - and mantles. These are the principal requirements of dress. Having decided how I am to spend the sum I have for these, I should then see what was left for stationery, needlework, presents and last but most important of all, charity. Everybody, however little money they have, should take a certain sum, before they spend any of the rest, for charity. This is a money obligation which brings with it a rare harvest of blessings.

As years go on, you will find that the happiness of your lives depends far less upon the outward surroundings - wealth, prosperity and the like - than on yourself, your own capacity for happiness, which, after all, is one of the greatest blessings that comes to us here; and one of the chief things which gives real happiness is helping others. Money troubles are not to be lightly esteemed. Spending annually a little over your income brings endless annoyance - a little under, much comfort and much self-respect. It is not given to all women to do great things - to be successful novelists or leaders in the political and social world, or even the mothers and wives of successful men who make a noise in the world. Every year more and more women have to give up any hope of becoming wives and mothers at all, but have to content themselves with quiet paths. Possibly they are freer from the grave anxieties and the deepst sufferings of life, while they lose a few of the sweetest and holiest joys; but little duties are always within women's sphere and it is with these little duties that bring such great results that money has to much to do.

Money is the root of all evil - granted; but it is the root of all good, and such a powerful lever, exercising such an amazing influence for good or ill, that we are very wrong and foolish to esteem it but little.

A few pounds - sometimes a few pence - make all the difference between happiness and misery; and you have to understand a good deal of the life of the very poor before you really know what money's worth is. Think what it must be to work from morning till night, as many poor workwomen do - yes and into the very small hours of the night - and but earn one shilling a day. Many of the dressmakers you girls are likely to employ may very possibly be living from hand to mouth; and if you, in your heedlessness, omit to pay the small account you owe them the chances are they will have but a meagre dinner on Sunday and very possibly be stitching from moning to night, with nothing to support them but tea and bread. The chances are they are beginning entirely on their own resources and have no parents to fall back upon. Very poor people get so accustomed to the sea of suffering that they live through that they do not complain, fearing to do so, lest it stop their small earnings. It might do many of you girls a deal of good, and teach you a lesson of patience and sympathy, if you could only see into the heart of the poor woman who is trying on your dress with far more troubles before her than the disappointment that she has not fitted you to perfection.

It is a duty in life, and a great one too, to be very prompt and particular about money payments and the well-to-do have duties as well as the needy. With a well filled purse it may be a great saving of trouble to pay just what is asked without going into items, but overpaying is as wrong as underpaying - you are thereby making is harder for those who are not so well off and raising unduly the market value of time or produce. "To be true and just in all our dealings" is not so very easy after all, and entails self-denial as most of life's duties do. We cannot live for ourselves; our interests are bound up in others; nor did we come into this world to seek and ensure our own happiness. We are sent here to fulfil the great purposes of God and even the weakest of us are capable of doing His will and living for His glory. In doing so, we promote our own happiness, which a selfish struggle to attain our own ends will never do.

When you can, my girl readers, obtain and study deeply Smiles' book on 'Thrift', a work which, to my thinking, embodies the whole science of money obligations. Thrift is not meanness nor unworthy economy; it is making the best of everything, turning all to the best advantage - money, time and opportunities for our own good and for others. Life is no summer holiday. There are heavy trials and disappointments before all of us, but with the suffering there is always compensation and the lessons of adversity are sweet, though the teaching may be bitter. Doing our best will help us through all, and in this I include taking large and noble views of life. We may be poor and generous; meanness and poverty do not necessarily go together. People who know the world well will corroborate what I tell you - that it is far better to have money transactions with poor people than rich; they know better the value of money, so are more particular in the discharge of small debts, and, alas! are more generous.

If you begin when you are young to recognise the importance of money obligations and the misery of debt, you are laying by a small fortune for yourselves. Learning how to spend money means many pounds a year in your pocket.

9 February, 1889 - Answers to Correspondents - Miscellaneous

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IDA VILLIERS:- It is not often that we are asked to help thin people to get fat; it is generally the other way. First, we should advise you to sit down and be quite tranquil for at least half an hour after your meals, and to cherish a thankful unrepining loving spirit; and get all the sleep possible. Eat butter, fat meats; take cream, milk, coca, chocolate, bread, potatoes, peas, parsnips, carrots, beetroots and all farinaceous foods; pastry, custards and sugar. Avoid acids and do not tire yourself with exercise. You must remember however that the very slightest thinnest people often become stoutest in middle life.

BLANCHETTE and PENELOPE.:- The peeling of the lower lips in large flakes is often to do with the digestion. You had better consult a doctor. A good lip-salve might help you, bought of a chemist who makes it himself.

2 June 1900 - Answers to Correspondents - Miscellaneous

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ALISON:- You should introduce or present other people to the Bishop (not vice versa). When you have done this you should say "the Lord Bishop of -" and he should be thus styled by the servant who announces him. His place of precedence is immediately before the temporal barons, who, if present, must be presented to him.

6 January, 1900 - 'Breadwinning at Home: Doll-Making' by Margaret Bateson

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Dolls are creepy. But someone has to make them. For a pittance.

"It is very pretty work," said a worn-out little woman, gazing around her with manifest pride. Her gaze was directed towards some bundles of dolls' bodies and arms, a box of sawdust, and a heap of wood shavings. Otherwise, indeed, there was little enough upon which the eye could rest. The window looked out upon a dull off-street in Shoreditch. No carpet covered the bare boards of the room, and there was scarcely any furniture except the bed. Here the doll-maker, a widow, lived quite alone, with nothing to read, nothing to look at, and nothing else to do save to go on persistently stuffing dolls.

It had not always been thus with her. AT one time she had been a charwoman; but that business did not pay. The "ladies" - that is to say, the East end house mistresses - had often been badly off themselves, and then they did their own charing. But seventeen years had passed since that period - seventeen years in which she had remained faithful to the doll trade, if one can term fidelity a helpless adherence to the only business by which one can live at all.

How this unfortunate but amiable little woman did live still remains a mystery to me. Her earnings, she told me, varied between 5s. and 8s. a week. Her rent (which did not vary) was 4s. a week. From August till Christmas trade was at its highest; but after Christmas, when all the children were provided with dolls and all the parents and uncles and aunts have spent their money, there would be almost nothing to do for three months.

My friend, as I gathered gradually from what she told me, worked for some small domestic firm, consisting of a man and his daughters, who in their turn had a pretty hard struggle for existence. The doll trade, in truth, does not flourish nowadays as well as it once did. British doll makers have never pretended to make those exquisite wax creatures that are brought for the nurseries of the wealthy. THese have always come from France. On the other hand, our workers are outsold in the cheap market by the Germans, who offer for less money a prettier article. That it is prettier British doll-makers, of course, indignantly deny. My poor friend spoke with conviction of the inferiority of German dolls, although as one looked at her own human images which littered the floor it did not seem possible that there were many grades of descent from her models. One of the provoking incidents of German competition she mentioned was the fact that the German make their dolls so that the legs will bend at the place where the knees are supposed to be. Consequently, she was obliged to make the dolls' legs pliable and for the extra labour she unhappily received no extra payment. But granted that this suppleness of the lower limbs was an advantage, there was no denying - so she said - that the German heads would fall off at the slightest knock, and that the composition feet were disposed to get chipped.

The bodies of my friend's dolls were made of rag with black calico feet, and arms and hands of flesh-coloured leather. This leather, by the way, she could only purchase in small quantities, and therefore expensively. She could not make the bodies herself, but had to take the r4ag to a machinist to be stitched up, and then fetch the dolls away again. What with errands of this kind and with continually going to and fro to fetch work from her employers, much time was consumed, and her small store of strength (for she was not young) was reduced.

Her chief business was stuffing the dolls. She explained to me that stuffing called for skill. The bodies would be filled with sawdust up to the hips and with shavings above, so that the larger part of the body should be light. The waist part should be stuffed very firmly, so as to give a centre of gravity to balance the weight of the head; but the bust and shoulders must be loosely filled.

For small rag dolls' bodies, she received 3 1/4 L. a dozen. Formerly the price was a farthing more. Arms were paid for at 1d. per dozen. For large dolls she received 10 1/2 d. a dozen; this class of work paid her better. She began work at 5 a.m. and went to bed at half past 11, but could only turn out from six to eight dozen bodies a day. She could make a dozen arms in an hour. Out of her earnings she had to buy her own stuffing. The saw dust cost 5s. 6d. per cwt, and a half sack woulde last between a week and a fortnight. Calico cost 6d. per lb., and leather 3d. per lb.

Occasionally, but not often, she also did the covering of the faces. She showed me presently how this was effected. Taking up a ready made wax face, she pressed it into a heated mould,previously lined with white muslin, whidh adhered to the warm wax and came away with it. Upon this surface her employer would paint the features and complexion. For effecting this little operation, which required some deftness, the doll-maker was pakid 6d. per gross. She found this kind of work more remunerative than any, because she had neither to supply faces nor muslin. It was a drawback, she went on to say, that she was constantly obliged to change from one branch of work to another. And then she had always to be thinking about money. There was never a penny to spare.

Lately she had got all into a tangle. She had been obliged to refuse work, because it was more than one pair of hands could manage, and yet she could not employ an assistant because, as usual, she had no ready money. I asked my friend whether, in the pressure of her work, she found time to do her own cooking. She replied that what little cooking she could afford to do she did, but it was very little. Nothing about the small fireplace betrayed any signs of cooking; her meals were manifestly mainly of the tea and bread-and-butter order. She was, moreover, an abstainer. She spoke with great pleasure of two occasions on which she had been taken for a day into the country by some Church organisation. One of thse had been into Epping Forest, where she had almost lost herself. Poor little woman, so helppless and so amiable! I left her to her "pretty work" feeling, I am convinced, much more sorry for her than she felt for herself.

Having seen the doll made, let us turn to the dressing processes. Many dolls of the "alien immigrant" variety arrive in this country in a state of nudity; consequently doll-dressing is a larger industry than doll-making. It is an industry practiced in London, Glasgow and other large towns. The Scottish workers achieve a measure of success by dressing the dolls as "Hieland laddies" and Newhaven fishwives, and their handiwork may, for aught I know, be attractive. But I should be letting patriotism get the better of me if I asserted that the cheaply attired doll of South Britain was a fair match for the equally cheap doll that arrives in costume from Germany, France and Switzerland. Both the English and the foreign cheap dressed doll wear materials of little value, and neither has had much stitching lavished upon her wardrobe; but while the foreign doll usually looks as though her dress carried out some particular idea on the part of the designer, the English doll looks dowdy - elle manque de chic, as the Frenchwoman said of the Venus of Melos. This dowdy appearance is scarcely surprising, seeing that many of the women who dress doll live in that poverty stricken half of London where from New Year's Day till Christmas they scarcely ever behold any scrap of beauty or elegance.

It can scarcely be doubted that some improvement would be effected in the qualit5y of the dressing if workrooms were established under the direction of women with ideas and taste. One wholesale London firm, that is in great part managed by ladies who have had both an excellent education and long business training, has made the experiment of opening such a workroom. Here girls are chiefly employed rather than the older women who are tied to their homes. These girls, as I learned from the wage book, earn from ten to fourteen shillings a week, and I was told that during the few years the workroom had been in existence, the quality of the dolls' dresses has distinctly risen.

With a rare exception such as this, the employment is still an instance of "breadwinning at home". According to the description given me by one of the ladies to whom I have referred, the dressing of the average cheap doll reduced the complications of the toilet to their elements. A double square of calico, stitched all round and twice up the middle, is cut up and turned inside out to hide the raw edges, forms a bifurcated undergarment. With a chemise the doll of the people dispenses, but she has a petticoat edged with deep lace, because petticoats show. Her dress is frequently made of flannelette, pinked out at the neck and shoulders, and turned up at the hem with a band of sateen of some contrasting colour. A string is run through to draw the dress in at the waist. With a scrap of white muslin and wire a hat of picturesque shape is concocted and, behold, dolly is dressed.

But of course fashions are always changing, and each set of dolls must be costumed a little differently. The doll which I have been describing is the kind of young lady the customer buys for sixpence. She is sold by the wholesale to the retail dealers at 4s. 6d. per dozen. Very good dolls - dolls whose garments take off and bear inspection - are sold at 12s. a dozen. For these the customer is charged 1s. 6d. or 2s. each, according to the season of the year and the locality of the shop. The wholesale dealer rarely gets 2s. apiece for a doll unless it is a particularly large one; for size in dolls is regarded as indicative of worth.

The earnings of home doll dressers vary greatly according to industry and skill. The work is paid for at fom 1 1/2 d. to 8d. a dozen for the commonest species of London dolls. In Scotland I believe prices are considerably higher; and I have seen 1s. 6d. to 18s, a dozen quoted; but the work in these cases must be of considerable merit and elaboration. It is difficult to strike an average even for London doll dressers, because from day to day and from week to week the takings vary remarkably. An indifferent worker earned in one week 4s. 10d., dressing on one day two dozen, on another three and a half dozen, and on a third five dozen. The next week she took 11s. 8d., dressing from four to six dozen each day. She was helped by a crippled son. A good worker who "lived alone" earned 15s. 9 1/2d. in one week; the advantage of working uninterruptedly counted probably in the case of the latter for more than the occasional help given to the other who had a large family to look after. The doll dressmaker, I should add, is provided with materials by the wholesale firms who give out work; but she needs to possess a sewing machine, which is an expensive piece of stock-in-trade.

One of the doll dressers whom I visited, I found inhabiting two extremely squalid rooms in a tumble down dwelling immediately over a public house, where a group of women were gossiping in a state of partial intoxication. The staircase was rickety in the extreme, and a part of the dirty cracked ceiling, I was informed by the woman, had fallen the other day upon her husband - who was a delicate man and not able to do much - and upon one of her sons. The landlord refused to put the place into repair; but as they paid 5s. a week for these rooms, whereas for about the same amount of spacfe they would be charged 7s. 6d. in "the dwellings" she thought it necessary to bide where they were, although the accommodation in the dwellings was better in many essential particulars.

She had six children, of whom one, a pale-faced but intelligent-looking lad, was at home when I entered. Her boys, she said proudly, could do anything with their fingers, and could make dolls' frocks, blouses, and sleeves beautifully. One of these nimble-fingered boys had lately found work at a staymaker's, where he was employed tipping the bones with metal.

At the moment of my call the doll dresser was puzzling over a new model which she ought to copy. It was a cotton sun bonnet, goffered in a very pretty way, and edgedf with white imitation lace. HOw was this goffering to be done? That was the question which puzzled her. But she had come practically to the conclusion that it required a special appliance to be added to the machine, and she was convinced that the work would not repay the half-crown that the goffering instrument would cost.

At present - it was the beginning of the doll dressers' season - the making of samples was the worker's chief occupation. Any idea in ladies' apparel which she thought new or pretty she would imitate. For these samples no extra payment was received; but as they brought her more work she did not object. Like my other friend the doll maker, the doll dresser thought her work attractive. She scarcely ever made two dozen alike, and manifestly enjoyed the variety. Some costumes wanted a great deal of beading, others running, others tucking or trimming with lace. She evidently reckoned herself something of an artist in her way, though she did live in a slum in Shoreditch. The stuffing business she disliked, for it filled the place with "wood wool" (fine shavings); still, she did this also occasionally, when the dressing orders were slack.

Every morning she told me she rose at five to get one of the boys off to his work A little later came the preparation of her husband's breakfast. Yes, it was a busy life to be both a doll dresser and the mother of a family, all of whom must earn their bread. But she liked her work, and she esteemed her employers, who she seemed to feel were helping her to fight the terrible German giant.

23 November, 1885 - 'Dress: In Season and in Reason' by a Lady Dressmaker

2011-09-06T03:29:00.000-07:00

Best quote of this month's fashion column is "Aprons are coming in again, not but that they have always been 'in' with those who have work of any kind to do." Thanks.

To all appearances we are gradually coming back to the long plain skirts worn twenty or thirty years ago, before we ever heard of such a thing as an "overskirt". To some people - the short, stout and ungraceful - the change will be for the better, for the much bunched-up skirts did not well suit them, and took from their small amount o height. But with the long straight folds, the very tall and very thin people must beware, for they add to their maypole appearance by assuming too austere a style, and great regularity in vertical lines is sometimes a decided mistake.

Very little of the skirt is shown in some of the newest gowns, but I see that a deep shawl-like point in front, with regular upward folds, fastened into the side-breadths, are just as much used as they were last winter. When much of the underskirt is seen, it seems to be always of velvet, plush or of some handsome striped material. Skirts, in whatever material they are made, are nearly always plain, and generally with a panel of richer material let in on one side, and if the collar, cuffs and waistcoat be of velvet, this is of velvet also. Tartan is used for the same purpose with many of the heather-coloured woollens.

In the fronts and sides of dresses there is decidedly more fulness, as is perhaps natural, for they must hang in fuller folds when they are more uncovered. The plain full "peasant" or "housemaid" skirts have been thoroughly adopted for mourning use, and are trimmed with deep crepe tucks. When the latter are taken off, woollen lace is now thought very appropriate to replace it, not the bright-faced mohair lace, but that of a dull black surface, and very well it looks. Besides, it seems such a pleasant change for mourning purposes also.

And now I must give a few lines to the consideration of bodices, in order to help my stay-at-home girls, and my industrious ones too, who aspire to making their own bodices. Slashed bodices are much used, the slashings being put down the back in a pointed form, round the arm-hole also, and on the edge of the basque. Thus they are most useful in addition to an old-fashioned or worn out bodice. Bodices are still short on the hips, and many made for the dark rough-looking woollen gowns are cut with a rounded point back and front, and a two-inch band of velvet laid round the entire basque. Lace is also used in the same manner on silk, satin, or even cashmere bodices, the points of the lace being turned upwards. This is also an excellent idea for renovating an old bodice. Some of the newest bodices have five points - one in front, one on each side and two at the back. Bodices with full loose fronts are also still worn, but more in the house than for walking dress. They're fastened in with a band, and sometimes a buckle in front; and the basque is cut very short at the back.

Polonaises are decidedly advancing in favour, and I fancy next spring will probably show their return to everyday use. The two polonaises seen at present are plain and untrimmed - one with a double breast, the other plain, buttoned down the front, and a short distance from the waist from whence it hangs open.

In my illustration of outdoor mantles I have shown the new capes, mantelettes, and large cloaks of the season. Those who have good and expensive fur capes, and desire to lengthen and enlarge them, will be able to do so by the addition of some fur tails, which are very moderate in price. These tails are used now to border mantles and dolmans, as well as jackets. Long cloaks are made much more plainly than they were, and are no longer draped at the back, but are made full enough by wide pleats. The newest cloaks are made on the lines of college gowns, with a small yoke - a fashion, perhaps, adopted because our Princess looked well in her gown on the occasion of her Irish visit. All cloaks have large sleeves, some of which turn backwards, and are known as the nun's sleeve. Many of these yoked cloaks seem to me a little extravagant and so I do not illustrate them, as they seem but a passing caprice.

This season more jackets are worn than ever by both married and unmarried people. They seem to have won the day really because they are more comfortable for walking in than the very large cloaks. However, there are many mantelette shapes that are most stylish, and I have been not a little rejoiced to hear that so many of my girl readers have set to make their own mantles and jackets this winter.

The jackets worn are all small, have nearly tight backs, and the fronts cut so as to fall quite straight. The sides of the fronts are turned back to show the lining. They have no seams in front and all have high neckbands and large buttons. Nothing could be more simple or easier to make. They hook down the centre with hooks that are invisible, and a material called "Boucle tweed" is very generally used for them. Some of them fasten on the slant across the front and some have a clasp on the shoulder, while another has one on the left side to fasten them. Velvet and brocade is not used to make them, as the feeling this winter is for everything rough and coarse-looking.

Mantelettes are made of many materials, plus, broche plush, satin or velvet frise, fine cloth, or rough woollens of various colours. Some of them have small hoods at the back, and most of them fit into the figure closely at the back, and are made rather full, but the fronts are always long. The "sling sleeve" is the most fashionable, but for winter use I fancy many people will prefer the closest-fitting sleeve they can obtain.

There are several great novelties in the way of trimmings. Amongst others woollen fringe, sometimes tipped with small wooden beads, with which chenille fringes is also tipped. Yak lace is also used as a trimming, and wooden beads are placed upon it. Then there is a new woollen lace, wool being darned on net, and amongst other dangling trimmings we have fir-cones. Of the rosary fringe I need hardly speak, as it is to be seen everywhere, and there is quite a furore for it as an edging to basques, jackets and as trimmings to bonnets.

And now I must turn to bonnets; and I can congratulate my many home milliners that there is so much done to help them this season, and so little remains to be done at home. Every description of frame can be pocured, and the outside trimming is very simple. All bonnets and hats this season are covered smoothly with stockinette, or else with plush, velvet or woollen canvas. No metal ornaments are to be seen and flowers, too, seem dismissed, while feathers have given place in Paris to ribbon trimming almost entirely. The other ornaments used are rosary beads, buckls of wood, or wooden and tortoise-shell slides. All the ribbons for both bonnets and hats have the small picot edge, which used to be used on all ribbons, especially what were known as "love ribbons" years and years ago. The new way of using ribbons now is to have them at least three inches wide, and to old them in half before making the loops to the bonnets, so that the ribbon is used double - one edge being double and the other with the little rows of picots. Two-coloured ribbons are generally used for hats, and for country and rough wear hats are trimmed with woollen scarves, and of canvas with plush or velvet strips.

Hats and bonnets are both high in the crown, but in both the top is lat and they are covered with stockinette, stretched all in one piece over them quite smoothly. Stone-coloured stockinette, and also a light yhellowish tone with darker trimmings, are both much liked, and as a rule no trimming is put round either the crowns of hats or bonnets. The bows of ribbon are thick and very full; but there is no need of any extreme, which good taste should always lead us to avoid. The strings are a little longer than they have been worn for some time,and the small brooches are still used in them.

And here I must put in a note of entreaty to my girl-readers not to avail themselves of any of the poor little dead birds which are now much worn. I was told by a lady the other day that she had seen a poor wee birdie on a bonnet in a shop that positively had a drop of blood on its beak! Could bad taste go further?

So far that colours are concerned, I think blues, reds, and browns, of various shades, are the favourites. Very few shades of prune are to be seen. The new way of trimming woollens is to put quite another shade of velvet with them. or instance, on red, the velvet or plush should be blue; dark blue should have ruby; brown of a yellowish hue is put on grey woollens; and on browns, green, blue and burgundy-colour are used. Dark-green woollen would have crimson velvet or plush collars, cuffs, waistcoats and panels. All these additions can be made at home, with the aid of a little buckram.

I have not quite concluded about hats. Woollen stockinette is used to cover frames as well as silk, and all the hat-crowns that I have seen are flat on top. There are two other varieties, i.e. the "regimental" and the "Spanish". The latter is a revival of the "pork pie" of yore, with a deeper brim, and rather a different trimming, so that it does not look quite the same thing. The "regimental" is a very pretty cap, and is generally becoming. It is made in astrachan, folds of cashmere, coloured and black; and in all kinds of furs. It resembles the cap worn by many of the volunteer corps, and has a flat top, the band of the head being deeper behind than in front. Rather thick woollen cords are looped across the front, and an aigrette stands up at the left side.

Aprons are coming in again, not but they have always been "in" with those who have work of any kind to do. But I mean the real old-ashioned apron of black silk; large, long and covering the front breadth of the gown entirely. The new-old arrivals are more trimmed than formerly, and have a black lace flounce and lace pockets. Very pretty and dressy aprons are made of plush, with cream-coloured woollen lace and also of black lace bordered with astrachan. Black lace over coloured satin, with ribbon bows of the same colour, are very pretty. The bibs are small, but the apron makes a very valuable addition to the toilette of those who cannot manage to afford a change of dress in the evening, or do not think a thinner dress is a safe change.

My illustrations of winter house-dresses does not require much explanation, as the gowns are very carefully drawn. The lady standing with her back to us wears a gown of rough boucle cloth, with bias bands of velvet. This is a simple style and one that could be easily manufactured at home.

The figure on the sofa wears one of the white waistcoats which are still in favour. Now the weather is cold the waistcoat is made of cricket flannel.

The "Zouave" jacket is illustrated in the figure at the fireplace. The lady entering the room wears a skirt and trimmings of striped boucle cloth.

Amongst the new ideas must be mentioned the return to favour of the old eider-down petticoats, which though they have been always patronised by some people, have not been generally used since the tied-back style of dress came in. They require an elastic band sewn strongly on each side, or else strings, to keep the petticoat from comoing too much to the front. Some ladies, I hear, have steels inserted into them. This I should not think a good plan; but at any rate the eider-downs are delightful in use, they are so light and yet so warm.

Many ladies are ornamenting the cheap black and white laces with coloured silks. The lace selected has a well marked design, and the stitch used in chain-stitch. The lace is worked in all colours and is used for dresses as well as for tea-cloths and antimacassars, and it is a very pleasant employment.

The hair is still dressed high, and combs are more worn this autumn than usual. They are used also for the coils of basket-plaits, and are placed either at one side of the head or in the centr4e of the front parting.

Muffs are very small and are often made of the material of the dress when the dress is one of the rough woollens. The bag muffs are one of the most liked, and some of them have long ribbons, by which they are intended to hang on the arm when not wanted.

Last summer I saw several times a very pretty dress worn on the Thames, which has been copied this winter for the country, and as it seems to me to be an excellent thing, I must describe it here. The skirt was made of black serge or flannel of the "housemaid" style, the front being plain The skirt was of coloured flannel, pink, blue, or striped; the waistband was very wide, and a white silk sash was lightly tied at the left side. The hats were generally sailor-shaped, of black straw. This winter this idea has been repeated with the "Zouave" jacket, with sleeves as an addition, to make it warm enough. The scarf is placed round the hips, tied in a large bow at the side. The "Zouave" jacket does not reach the waist by at least two inches. The jacket is usually edged with ball-fringe, or, perhaps, fur or astrachan may be preferred.

23 October, 1885 - Answers to Correspondents - Miscellaneous

2011-09-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

WESTON-BY-WELLAND:- Our little friend at the address which we have substituted for a name, forgot two things in her letter; first she forgot to sign it and secondly she did not name her age when she asked whether she was old enough to wear long dresses. Girls' frocks are gradually lengthened as they grow older, and lengthened sometimes at an earlier age than would otherwise be considered at an earlier age than would otherwise be considered necessary, if very tall for their age. At about ten they should wear a slightly lengthened dress. Our little friend adds, "Could you tell me what to do to be as clever as you?" Alas! we know of no recipe for cleverness, but we advise her to be diligent in learning her lessons, and in filling her head with all the useful information she can get, but at the same time ever remembering that to be good is better than to be clever. We thank her for her kind wishes.

23 October, 1885 - Answers to Correspondents - Miscellaneous

2011-09-05T02:40:00.000-07:00

The Girl's Own Paper: Answers to Correspondents. Sound advice with a side of snark.

GLADYS AILEEN:- 1. We should bury the dog's skull in an ant hill, which little animals will eat every atom of flesh upon it, and we should then wash it very well with the red Condy's Fluid, and then put it outside your window to bleach. It was rather unnecessary to inform us that your dog was not living. We could scarcely imagine his trotting about having neither fur nor flesh upon his head, although we have heard of spectral brethren of his reputed to be headless altogether. When your deceased's dog's skull has been well bleached, varnish it with white transparent artists' varnish to keep it clean and preserve it. 2. I your hair is very long and thick, it may be desirable to wear a bathing cap, as it is difficult to dry it thoroughly.

Moving house

2011-09-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

Tumblr has turned out not to be the ideal style of blog for Highlights from the Girl's Own Paper mainly for formatting reasons and the fact that for blogs with large blocks of text the Tumblr archiving system is not ideal, especially for everyone whose dashboards get spammed when the 'Read More' function stops working. So I have moved. Rather than attempt to literally copy and paste everything from the Tumblr over here, which with my limited HTML skills would be asking for trouble, I will link both blogs. So for posts preceding September 2011 please see the original blog here.