“These do without fear, and to all you’ll appear
Fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever,
Tho’ the times remain darkish, your men may be sparkish,
And love you much stronger than ever."[137]

A perusal of extracts from newspapers of those days makes it clear that a good many men were of the opinion that more simplicity in dress would indeed make women “fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever.”  The Essex Journal of Massachusetts of the late eighteenth century, commenting upon the follies common to “females”—­vanity, affectation, talkativeness, etc.,—­adds the following remarks on dress:  “Too great delight in dress and finery by the expense of time and money which they occasion in some instances to a degree beyond all bounds of decency and common sense, tends naturally to sink a woman to the lowest pitch of contempt amongst all those of either sex who have capacity enough to put two thoughts together.  A creature who spends its whole time in dressing, prating, gaming, and gadding, is a being—­originally indeed of the rational make, but who has sunk itself beneath its rank, and is to be considered at present as nearly on a level with the monkey species....”

Even pamphlets and small books were written on the subject by ireful male citizens, and the publisher of the Boston News Letter braved the wrath of womankind by inserting the following advertisement in his paper:  “Just published and Sold by the Printer hereof, HOOP PETTICOATS, Arraigned and condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God."[138] Many a scribbler hiding behind some Latin pen name, such as Publicus, poured forth in those early papers his spleen concerning woman’s costume.  Thus in 1726 the New England Weekly Journal published a series of essays on the vanities of females, and the writer evidently found much relief in delivering himself on those same hoop skirts:  “I shall not busy myself with the ladies’ shoes and stockings at all, but I can’t so easily pass over the Hoop when ’tis in my way, and therefore I must beg pardon of my fair readers if I begin my attack here.  ’Tis 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.”