References to this approximation recur throughout the 'eighties. In 1880 Sambourne, taking for his text an article in the _Journal des Modes_, gives us a design of evening dress entitled, "Man or Woman--a Toss Up," and in the same year Du Maurier, in a picture of the "_Ne Plus_ Ulster," represents a customer expostulating with the shop-woman, "But it makes one look so like a man," only to be told, "That's just the beauty of it, Miss." Within limits _Punch_ applauded the change. When short dresses for dances were said to be coming in, in the same year, he dilates in verse on the salutary innovation. To the year 1881 belongs the foundation of the "Rational Dress Society." "Bloomerism," as I pointed out in an earlier volume, never appealed to Mayfair. But the Rational Dress Society claimed a live Viscountess--Lady Harberton--as its President, and recommended the adoption of a "dual garmenture" or "divided skirt" as its cardinal tenet. _Punch_ declared that the "divided skirt" was simply the old Bloomer costume slightly disguised, and saw in the movement only a fresh proof of woman's conscious inferiority:-- True that another skirt hides this insanity Miss Mary Walker in old days began; Yet it should flatter our masculine vanity, For this means simply the trousers of Man! [Illustration: LEVELLING TENDENCY OF MODERN DRESS OLD GENTLEMAN (shocked beyond description) to Verger: "Don't you think those youths had better be told to take their hats off?" VERGER: "Take their 'ats off! Bless you, Sir, those are the _Dean's_ young ladies!"] The Rational Dress reformers were tremendously in earnest, but they entirely failed to convert the fashionables, and _Punch_, who refused to take them seriously, ridiculed the movement in a burlesque cut of "United Trousers _v._ Divided Skirts," in which retaliation effects a _reductio ad absurdum_. An exhibition of Rational Dress was held in Prince's Hall in the summer of 1883, but _Punch_ remained unconvinced, and even obscurantist in his comments:-- We look at the models--they puzzle our noddles-- Regarding them all with alarm and surprise! Each artful customer revives Mrs. Bloomer, And often produces an army of guys. The costume elastic, the dresses gymnastic, The wonderful suits for the tricycle-ess-- Though skirts be divided, I'm clearly decided, It isn't my notion of Rational Dress! See gowns hygienic, and frocks calisthenic, And dresses quite worthy a modern burlesque; With garments for walking, and tennis, and talking, All terribly manful and too trouseresque! And habits for riding, for skating, or sliding, With "rational" features they claim to possess; The thought I can't banish, they're somewhat too mannish, And not quite the thing for a Rational Dress!