is equal to twice
their width. The under-sleeves follow the shape of the others, and have
two rows of _Alencon_ lace.

We have nothing new to report respecting the Bloomer costume. The
following clever parody of Hamlet's soliloquy, is quite ingenious:

To wear or not to wear the Bloomer costume, that's the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in us girls to suffer
The inconveniences of the long-skirt dress,
Or cut it off against these muddy troubles,
And, by the cutting, end them. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To don the pants:--
The pants! perchance the boots! Ay, there's the rub.
For in those pants and boots what jeers may come,
When we have shuffled off these untold skirts
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long a custom,
For who could bear the scoffs and jeers of boys--
The old maid's scandal--the young man's laughter--
The sidelong leers, and derision's mock,
The insolent press, and all the spurns
We Bloomers of these boobies take!
Who would the old dress wear,
To groan and toil under the weary load,
But that the dread of something after it--
Of ankles large, of crooked leg, from which
Not all escape, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather wear the dress we have
Than turn out Bloomers.

FOOTNOTES

1 Entered according to Act of Congress.

2 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by Harper
and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
Southern District of New York.

3 Concluded from the January Number.

4 Arsenic produces an increased salivation.

5 Continued from the January Number.

6 This is from McCulloch; but the home-consumption duty was lowered in
1842, from 6d. to 3d. per lb., and the consumption is now in all
probability much greater.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY, 1852***

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