But there were exceptions to the general rule,--just enough to prove the doctrine of averages; there were girls who came to the mill to work whom no one knew anything about, but they did not stay long, the life there being “too clean for them.” The health of the girls was good. The regularity and simplicity of their lives, and the plain and substantial food provided for them, kept them free from illness. From their Puritan ancestry they had inherited sound bodies and a fair share of endurance. Fevers and similar diseases were rare among them; they had no time to pet small ailments; the boarding-house mother was often both nurse and doctor, and so the physician’s fee was saved. It may be said that, at that time, there was but one _pathy_ and no “faith cures” nor any “science” to be supported by the many diseases “that flesh is heir to.” By reading the weekly newspapers the girls became interested in public events; they knew all about the Mexican war, and the anti-slavery cause had its adherents among them. Lectures on the doctrine of Fourier were read, or listened to, but none of them were “carried away” with the idea of spending their lives in large “phalansteries,” as they seemed too much like cotton-factories to be models for their own future housekeeping. The Brook Farm experiment was familiar to some of them; but the fault of this scheme was apparent to the practical ones who foresaw that a few would have to do all the manual labor and that an undue share would naturally fall to those who had already contracted the working-habit. Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, one of the early pioneers of the dress-reform movement, found followers in Lowell; and parlor meetings were held at some of the boarding-houses to discuss the feasibility of this great revolution in the style of woman’s dress. _The Lowell Journal_ of 1850 states that on the Fourth of July a party of “Bloomerites” walked in the procession through the public streets, and _The London Punch_ embellished its pages with a neat cartoon, a fashion-plate showing the different styles of the Bloomer costume. This first attempt at a reform in woman’s dress was ridiculed out of existence by “public opinion;” but from it has been evolved the modern bicycle costume, now worn by women cyclers. It seems to have been the fashion of the mill-girls to appear in procession on all public occasions. Mr. Cowley, in his “History of Lowell,” speaks of President Jackson’s visit to that city in 1833. He says: “On the day the President came, all the lady operatives turned out to meet him. They walked in procession, like troops of liveried angels clothed in white [with green-fringed parasols], with cannons booming, drums beating, banners flying, handkerchiefs waving, etc. The old hero was not more moved by the bullets that whistled round him in the battle of New Orleans than by the exhilarating spectacle here presented, and remarked, ‘They are very pretty women, by the Eternal!’” CHAPTER V.