the "merry widow" which was about two or three feet in diameter,
was all the rage, and the larger it became the more fashionable it was.
Sometimes the wearer could hardly go through a doorway.
Then came the hat crowned with birds' feathers, some ladies even placing
the complete bird on their hats -- a most ridiculous exhibition of bad taste.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should take up
the question of the destruction of birds for their plumage,
and agitate until the law makes it illegal to wear a bird on a hat.
Some may say that if people kill animals and birds for food
they might just as well wear a dead bird on their hats, if they wish
to be so silly, although the large majority of America's population,
I am sorry to find, sincerely believe meat to be a necessary article of diet;
yet who will claim that a dead bird on a hat is an indispensable article
of wearing apparel? Why do we dress at all? First, I suppose,
for protection against cold and heat; secondly, for comfort; thirdly,
for decency; and, fourthly, for ornament. Now does the dress of Americans
meet these requirements?

First, as regards the weather, does woman's dress protect her from the cold?
The fact that a large number of persons daily suffer from colds
arouses the suspicion that their dress is at fault. The body is neither
equally nor evenly covered, the upper portion being as a rule nearly bare,
or very thinly clad, so that the slightest exposure to a draught,
or a sudden change of temperature, subjects the wearer
to the unpleasant experience of catching cold, unless she is
so physically robust and healthy that she can resist all the dangers
to which her clothing, or rather her lack of clothing, subjects her.
Indeed ladies' dress, instead of affording protection sometimes
endangers their lives. The following extract from the "London Times"
-- and the facts cannot be doubted -- is a warning to the fair sex.