s now
some years since this remarkable fashion made a figure in the world and
from its first beginning divided the public opinion as to its
convenience and beauty. For my part I was always willing to indulge it
under some restrictions: that is to say if 'tis not a rival to the dome
of St. Paul's to incumber the way, or a tub for the residence of a new
Diogenes. If it does not eclipse too much beauty above or discover too
much below. In short, I am for living in peace, and I am afraid a fine
lady with too much liberty in this particular would render my own
imagination an enemy to my repose."

Perhaps, however, in this particular instance, men had some excuse for
their tirade; it may have come as a matter of self-preservation. We can
more readily understand their feelings when we learn the size of the
cause of it. In October, 1774, after Margaret Hutchinson had been
presented at the Court of St. James, she wrote her sister: "We called
for Mrs. Keene, but found that one coach would not contain more than two
such mighty hoops; and papa and Mr. K. were obliged to go in another
coach."

But hoops and bonnets and other extravagant forms of dress were not the
only phases of woman's adornment that startled the men and fretted their
souls. The very manner in which the ladies wore their hair caused their
lords and masters to run to the newspaper with a fresh outburst of
contempt. In 1731 some Massachusetts citizen with more wrath than
caution expressed himself thus: "I come now to the Head Dress--the very
highest point of female eloquence, and here I find such a variety of
modes, such a medley of decoration, that 'tis hard to know where to fix,
lace and cambrick, gauze and fringe, feathers and ribbands, create such
a confusion, occasion such frequent changes that it defies art,
judgement, or taste to recommend them to any standard, or reduce them to
any order. That ornament of the hair which is styled the Horns, and has
been in vogue so long, was certainly first calculated by some
good-natured lady to keep her spouse in countenance."[139]

This last statement proved too much; it was the straw that broke the
camel's back; even the meek colonial women could not suffer this to go
unanswered. In the next number of the same paper appeared the following,
written probably by some high-spirited dame: "You seem to blame us for
our innovations and fleeting fancy in dress which you are most
notoriously guilty of, who esteem yourselves the