s,[86] one after another gladly went back to the old
slavery and sacrificed freedom to repose. I have never wondered since
that the Chinese women allow their daughters' feet to be encased in
iron shoes, nor that the Hindoo widows walk calmly to the funeral
pyre. I suppose no act of my life ever gave my cousin, Gerrit Smith,
such deep sorrow, as my abandonment of the "Bloomer costume." He
published an open letter[87] to me on the subject, and when his
daughter, Mrs. Miller, three years after, followed my example, he felt
that women had so little courage and persistence, that for a time he
almost despaired of the success of the suffrage movement; of such
vital consequence in woman's mental and physical development did he
feel the dress to be.

Gerrit Smith[88] Samuel J. May, J. C. Jackson, C. D. Miller and D. C.
Bloomer, sustained the women who lead in this reform, unflinchingly,
during the trying experiment. Let the names of those who made this
protest be remembered. We knew the Bloomer costume never could be
generally becoming, as it required a perfection of form, limbs, and
feet, such as few possessed, and we who wore it also knew that it was
not artistic. Though the martyrdom proved too much for us who had so
many other measures to press on the public conscience, yet no
experiment is lost, however evanescent, that rouses thought to the
injurious consequences of the present style of dress, sacrificing to
its absurdities so many of the most promising girls of this
generation.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] One imagined himself possessed of rare powers of invention (an
ancestral weakness for generations), and had just made a
life-preserver of corks, and tested its virtues on a brother about
eighteen months old. Accompanied by a troop of expectant boys, the
baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the Seneca, stripped,
the string of corks tied under his arms, and set afloat in the river,
the philosopher and his satellites in a row-boat, watching the
experiment. The child, accustomed to a morning bath in a large tub,
splashed about joyfully, keeping his head above water. He was as blue
as indigo, and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious mother.
The next day, the same victimized infant was seen by a passing friend,
seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without
alarming any one, the friend hurried up to the house-top, and rescued
the child from the arms of the philosopher. Another time, three elder