The Women Of Our Time.

mania has reached our young laches , no doubt through others who began it ; but still it has reached them . And we observe that " position of affairs" in countless forms and ways before us , hour by hour among them to some extent .

The adoption ot paint , the use of stibium , the various cosmetics and dyes , which makes some charlatan's fortune , the washes and the powders , the false hair , and the false everything else , are all tokens sure and sad enough to the thoughtful and observant , that a detrimental change has

taken place in the habits and feelings of our youthful and domestic angels on this particular point . I remember a time , although long ago , when such an idea would have been laughed to scorn by our young ladies themselves , when paint and enamel would have been louked upon as a disgrace to a young woman , and all these outward manifestations of a most vitiated

taste m dress , & e ., would have been at once repudiated and put clown . But times change , and we change with them . You see to-day—and it is a sad sight to see , a very pretty girl " painted-up , " as they say , "to the eyes "—the eyebrows are darkened , the under lids are stainedand everything

, seems fictitious about them . What can they do it for ? Whom do they please ? Whose admiration do thej' seek to gain ? I confess 1 cannot , aud do not , understand it , except upon the hypothesis originally suggestedthat a love of "bizarrerie" has over-mastered

their good sense and their true hearts ! All these outre fashions , and all these questionable transformations , all hail from a bad school , and seem to point to lower circles alike iu morals and manners ; not , I mean , as to society generally , but to a questionable layer of earthly formationwhich is equally

, hurtful to those above it and those beneath it . I have often said to myself when I have beheld the " Persian bloom , " or the exuberant "Pearl Powder , " an evident sign of " pink and white , " carefully put ou , " my clear girl if yon only knew

how j r ou disfigure yourself , how you take from your many charms , you would at once desist from so foolish and so pernicious a habit . All such " gettiug-up " is hurtful to you , alike in " hygiene" and " morale , " and will take from your youth and add to your age many years . A few years hence you will be an old woman , dried up if

" clecoltee , " with a seared and withered face , and you will have thrown away that grace which would have lasted your life , aud that freshness of youthful beauty which would have outlived many a storm . How can you be so reckless and so perverse ? " I do not suppose that my grumble and my

complaint will much affect the laughing Constance , or the merry Muriel , the fashionable Alethea , or the advanced Julia ; but still I cannot forbear to impart alike my confidence and my regrets to a confiding and patient publicand to them .

, 1 do not enter here to-day on the wider question of " les mceurs . " I , for one , do not believe that in this respect our young ladies are worse than their elders ; and , indeed , I am quite sure they are not . Neither do Ifor oneat all endorse the often

gro-, , velling complaints of men as regards our young married women and our young ladies . For the men are a great deal to blame for the present state of things , in my humble

opinion . The ingenious and ingenuous defender of " Our Boys " talks of club life being a reality and pleasure . Well , 1 have lived at one time a good deal in clubs , and I , for one , utterly deny such a proposition . Club life , though pleasant and amusing , and

agreeable enough , is not a reality at all , except as it conduces to the convenience and comfort of gentlemen . That it certainly does , and , no doubt , is a very good thing in its way . But , if I were a young man , I should prefer a comfortable homo with a good little wife to all the clubs iu the world !

At present the men will lead , bachelor lives , though they are married , and the women are often left to their " own devices " all the day . The husband walks off with his cigar after breakfast ; he ' s going to the City , or the Club , or Tattersall ' s , or fifty other placeshe s yspartly trulypartly

, , , falsely , and the women have to get on as well as they can by themselves . But the woman did not marry for this ! Wlieu the husband returns for a late dinner he ' s bored , or blase , he ' s lost his money at pool or whist ( afternoon whist ) something ' s

, gone wrong in the City , he says , and the wife sutlers . Or , perhaps , they eat a hurried dinner before going to the play , during which " cher sposo" says , " Capital good cook at our Club . What a deuced