IN 1886, a young Southern woman spending the summer at
the fashionable watering place, Narragansett Pier, Rhode
Island, wrote a letter to one of' her friends at home. It was a
friendly, catty, feminine letter, written with the dash and
accuracy of description that seem to come spontaneously to
the woman who is engaged in the delicate surgical art of
taking the hide off another woman, and, since it bears on
bathing suits which will be considered in this chapter, it is
here quoted:

DEAR COUSIN,

I am snatching a few moments from the daily rush to
again urge you to join Me. . . . With the idea of enticing
you, I will attempt to give a fleeting glimpse of the pass-
ing show.

During the bathing hours at high tide . . . the beach
and hotel verandas are crowded with onlookers. An hun-
dred or more bathers -- men and women -- afford us no
end of entertainment. Charlie Dudley is here and, as you
Aknow, one permits him to say outrageous things. The
combination of his charm and daring humor are disarm-
ing. He sat beside me today while all eyes were riveted
on one Mrs. Gissing from Chicago. She is supposed to be
beautiful. I make a guess that her auburn tresses have
been assisted and her figure is described by Charlie as
being roBUST and HYPnotic. Some say, "divorcee,"
others "grass-widow." Well, no matter. In any case it
would take a horse race to keep up with her. I, of course,
know her only by sight, and sight she is! The men buzz
around her like bees and gather about the bath rooms to
see her pass, en route to the waves. She always lolls on
the sand a bit before making a kittenish dash -- she's

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