Notch Bin », 1889.] THE YAKS IN FRANCE. 391
in fact reading the sentence of death of many victims. Let it be remembered, too, that the neuralgic, rheumatic and heart diseases thus brought on are of a hereditary character. The wearer of crinoline and invisible bonnets, in in- curring such diseases herself, renders her future children liable to them; and the children now bitten by the wintry winds, if they live to be parents, may see their offspring suffer from the ignorance and vanity of their own mothers. It is universally observed that certain diseases are becoming more common every year — neuralgia and heart disease, as well as the throat ailments of which we hear so much. It would be a great benefit if we could learn how much of the form and the increase of maladies is ascribable to our modes of dress.
What is to be done? Will anything ever be done? or is feminine wilfulness and slavishness to fashion to kill off hundreds and thousands of the race, as at present? There are whole societies in America who do not see the necessity for such mischief, and who hope to put an end to it — in their own country at least. The Dress-Reform Association of the United States was instituted some years since by women who refused the in- convenience of Paris fashions in American home- steads: and they have been aided, not only by physicians, but by other men, on the ground of the right of women to wear what suits their occu- pations and their taste, without molestation. The dress which was long ago agreed upon, after care- ful consideration — the so-called Bloomer costume (not as we see it in caricature, but in its near resemblance to the most rational English fashion of recent times) — is extensively worn, not only in rural districts, but in many towns. It seems to fulfil the various conditions of rational, modest, and graceful dress better than any other as yet devised for temperate climates; and if so, it will spread, in spite of all opposition.
What opposition it met with here is not for- gotten, at home or abroad, and never will be forgotten. Some of our highest philosophers and best-bred gentlemen were more indignant and ashamed than perhaps anybody else. They said that we constantly saw Englishmen angry and scornful because of the indignities cast by Mussul- man bigotry on the dress of Europeans in Damas- cus and Jerusalem; but here were Englishmen doing the same thing, without equal excuse, when Englishwomen proposed to adapt their dress to their health, convenience, and notions of grace. The aggressors triumphed. They induced outcast women to adopt the dress, and stamped it with disrepute before it had a chance of a trial. It was an unmanly act; and if those who were concerned in it have since suffered from the extra- vagance of wife and daughters, or from sickness and death in their households which might have been averted by a sensible method of clothing old and young, they have had their retribution. Some of our newspapers are rebuking others for meddling with the women’s choice of fashions— quoting the rebuke sustained by the old “Spectator ” on account of that line of criticism: but it is an affair which concerns both sexes and all ages. What hinders a simple obedience to common-sense in the matter?
It is only for the women of those classes who really have business in life to refuse to encumber them- selves with tight, or heavy, or long, or unservice- able dress, and to adhere to any mode which suits them; and then, whatever the idle and fanciful may choose to do, the useless mortality will be mainly stopped, and the general health prevented from sinking lower. It may be confidently avowed that in this way only can women win back some of the respect which they have forfeited by the culpable absurdity of their dress within the last few seasons. From the duchess to the maid-ser- vant, the slaves of French taste have lost position; and it will require a permanent establishment of some leading points of the sense and morality of dress to restore their full dignity to the matronage and maidenhood of England.
Harriet Martineau.
THE YAKS IN FRANCE.
When the household goods of Warren Hastings were sold at Daylesford, there was found a painting from nature of a Yak, which had formerly lived in the pretty little park which surrounds the house. This greatly puzzled the squires, who thought the animal a bad beast, without points, and with nothing whatever to recommend it but its marvellous coat.
Our neighbours in France have taken a very different view of the qualities of the yak, and have been vigorously engaged, since 1854, in acclimatising this singular race of cattle in the Basses Alpes, in Dauphing, in Auvergne, and at Paris.
So little was known there about the yak in 1848, that M. Isidore Geoffroy St. -Hilaire, in his report on the domestication and naturalisation of useful animals, scarcely ventured to think of the possibility of bringing it to Europe. Very soon after he wrote, however, a female yak was sent via Calcutta, to the late Lord Derby, and she was still alive at the sale of the Knowsley collection, after his death, in 1851. There was lively bidding for the yak; she was knocked down to a dealer at a hundred guineas, and very soon resold for two; scarcely was the bargain struck when an American party — whom the astute purchaser number two had descried looming in the distance— came up, and offered three! Too late! Purchaser num- ber one had been walked round even at two hundred. No money would tempt number two, and the poor yak, in a few weeks, died in a caravan in consequence of his obstinacy.
Although the Worcestershire squires did not appreciate the qualities of the yak, it is a first-rate animal in point of usefulness, and in the elevated plateau of its native Thibet answers better than Short-horn or Long-horn, Ayrshire or Alderney.
The yak yields milk and makes a superior roast; the yak supplies good material for cloth and shawls in its woolly undercoat; the yak is a beast of burden, and drags the plough; the yak is at need a charger — Dr. Hooker was captured by a division of yak-mounted troopers on the borders of Sikkim. The yak is at once the camel, the horse, and the sheep of the Thibetan; his spoils become
the insignia of honour in some countries, and the