HOOPOLOGY | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 25, 1861

HOOPOLOGY.

AMELIA does not wear hoops. And why? Simply because she thinks this fashion is one of the most ridiculous the world has ever seen. "Oh, but you are behind time," somebody says, "every one wears them." What if they do, it shows very plainly that though their bodies are "puffed out" to an unnatural size, their minds require no hoops.

The followers of hoopology tell us they wear them for comfort. A short time ago, when the other extreme in dress was raging, that was comfortable, too. "Consistency is a jewel." That they are graceful, none can fail of observing when a dummy woman resembles a jug, and a tall one a hogshead—of their convenience we need not speak, for every one who has traveled at all the past year, can testify to this feature in the science. Well, what conclusion do we come to? Just this: hoops are worn because it is the fashion, and that is the only reason. And this is the very doctrine that we despise, not that we would uphold singularity in dress, or any of the new-fangled dress-reform notions. What we want is moral courage to say to the fickle goddess, thus far shalt thou come and no farther. If ladies would take this stand, and follow her dictates only so far as taste would lead them, "Mrs. Crinoline" would soon leave the stage of action.

A great cry is made about men shaving their beards and making themselves look like young porcupines. Who blames them! Rather let us wonder they do not shave their heads and clothe themselves in sack-cloth and ashes, on account of the degeneracy of the female race. "O tempora, O mores!"—that hoopology should be tolerated.—Rural New Yorker.