ON THE WHIPPING OF YOUNG LADIES
Cooper · 2014
My dear, it is seventy-two years since I went to school-only think of th a t !—and I was twelve years old at the time. It was to Regent House, Bath, I was to be sent, and the journey from here, including a short stay in London, occupied a week. There’s not much trouble now in fitting girls out for school, but it was very different then. My mother had all the old stores of the house turned out, and passed in review, to see what could be made up for me ; for gowns were gowns in those days, and descended from mother to daughter, not like the flimsy things made now-a-days, which are worn once or twice, and never seen any more, except in the windows of second-hand shops, or on the backs of poor wretches not to be named here. And my mother had a wardrobe which was the envy of all the neigh bourhood. I was a young person of quality, and my outfit was proportionably good. I had six gowns ; young ladies would think that nothing now, but then it was a great deal. I had a chintz gown of white with red spots, the newest style, and made in the first fashion, with the short waist, which had become so fashionable. Two inches from the arm-pits was the mode, and it was quite out of fashion to have the sash lower. There was another of the same material, with a pattern of lace running over it in many stripes, which was considered very genteel. Both these dresses (we never used that word in those days) were made very open in front and almost down to the waist, and the skirt of moderate width, almost always fastened up on one side. To wear with these there were elaborately trimmed petticoats, not at all unlike some of those you are going to take to school with you, and the proper out-door finish of the costume was a long, straight scarf, and gloves reaching up to the elbows to meet the sleeves. A lady might exercise her taste in the colour of her gloves. I had several pairs, white and coloured, all trimmed and embroidered ; one pair; especially, of fine lawn, beautifully trimmed with lace and embroidered with silk, cost a great deal of money, The hair was worn frizzed and curled, and bonnets were small : they were made to sit quite on the top of the head, and had a great deal of trimming. I dare say young girls now-a-days would think them ugly, but as I remember them I can’t see that they were uglier or more inconvenient than the things women put on their heads now ; but it is all fashion, my dear-fashion : la mode is a very tyrant-always was and always will be. The days were not very long past then when women used to dress their hair two feet high, and wear coaches, and ships, and animals, on their heads for ornament. My mother had a coach-and-four in blown glass, which she used to wear, when she was young, on great occasions. I had nothing of that sort, the fashions being simpler, to my mother’s grief, who would fain have had me decked out in the style of her early days. She had a chip hat made in the shape the lovely Misses Gunning made so fashionable, but it would not do for me, and my best bonnet was not at all unlike a coal-scuttle turned upside down, with three, bands of pink ribbon on it, and little rosettes at the top. Hoops were not quite gone out, and I had one for full dress, for it was a fashionable school I was going to. The gown to wear with it was a white brocade covered all over with little moss rosebuds, and trimmed with fly fringe and bunches of red and green ribbon, the body cut very low, and the short sleeves trimmed wkh a fall of deep lace* Ah, my dear, hoops weren&s;t abit uglier than the hideously large crinolines that women wore till lately, although King George IV. did abolish them by a royal edict. I had stockings of many colours, and all with clocks, and numbers of pairs of shoes of colours, to match my dresses. My poor mother was so sorry that the high heels and clogs had gone o u t ; she wore them to the day of her death, and declared they were the most comfortable and proper things ; but they wer*. out, and all mine wrere made in the mode, low in the quarter and flat in the heel, like a modern dancingshoe. I had fans, too ; one is enough for a young lady now-a-days, but it wasn’t so then ; we carried fans everywhere like the Japanese, and I had one for walking and one for morning, one for evening and another for full dress. I had a good many jewels, but you may see many like them in the shop windows now, for the old fashion of large earrings and showy jewellery is reviving again. I had to take with me a large stock of towels and sheets, and a knife, fork, spoon, and silver ring, on which my name was engraven. Our journey from Greshambury to London, only four-and-twenty miles, as you know, took nearly the whole day in Mr. Burnet&s;s fast coach, the coachman and guard going a round-about road, for there were many unsafe places to passBlackheath especially. We put up at the Saluta tion Inn in the Borough, and the next day I was shewn a good deal of London.