Note robes there for rinking, and gowns for tea-drinking, For yachting, for climbing, for cricketing too; The dresses for boating, the new petticoating, The tunics in brown and the trousers in blue. The fabrics for frockings, the shoes and the stockings, And corsets that ne'er will the figure compress; But in the whole placeful there's little that's graceful And girlish enough for a Rational Dress! 'Tis hardy and boyish, not girlful and coyish-- We think, as we stroll round the gaily-dight room-- A masculine coldness, a brusqueness, a boldness, Appears to pervade all this novel costume! In ribbons and laces, and feminine graces, And soft flowing robes, there's a charm more or less-- I don't think I'll venture on dual garmenture, I fancy my own is the Rational Dress. [Sidenote: _Punch the "Anti-Rationalist"_] Strong-minded women, in _Punch's_ view, only emphasized their angularity by the masculinity of their attire--witness his "Aunt Jemima," an uncompromising Blue Ribbonite, in an ulster and hard felt hat, explaining to a French cab-driver that the extra half-franc is a "_pour-manger_" and not a "_pour-boire_." The allusion to corsets in the lines quoted above may be supplemented by a paragraph which appeared early in 1891 showing that the "rationalizing" of dress had spread to the Dominions. At Sydenham, Ontario, corsets had been declared, in a memorable phrase, to be "incompatible with Christianity." To the end of this period _Punch_ discourages the extremes of the "Rational" school. His wittiest criticism is the paradoxical remark put in the mouth of one girl who disapproves of the mannish costume of a friend in a covert coat with a man's hat: "It makes you look like a Young Man, you know, and that's so effeminate!" The small deer-stalking cap worn by the lady, salmon fishing with a formidable gillie, in 1885, is identical with that worn by the male sportsman. The ulsters and "golf-capes," worn by women when travelling, and the narrow-brimmed felt hats shown in 1891, are practically identical for men and women; and in 1892 _Punch_ laments (after Herrick) the introduction of the loose "sack" coat, in imitation of the masculine model:-- Whenas my Julia wears a sack, That hides the outline of her back, I cry in sore distress, Alack! Later on in the same poem his clothes philosophy is summed up in six lines:-- Although men's clothes are always vile-- The coat, the trousers and the "tile"-- Some sense still lingers in each style. But women's garments should be fair, All graceful, gay, and debonair, And if they lack good sense, why care? [Sidenote: _Slaves of Fashion_]