OLD FURNITURE
8o
appear to have been faithful to the hoop. The effect of this fashion is seen in the arms of the
which are often carried back from the front rail, and in the generous proporThe hooped petticoat makes tions of the seats. settees
and
chairs,
triumphal appearance in the pictures of the
a
time
in the literature
;
receives a well-deserved
Addison, with gentle irony, relates
castigation.
in
it
the Spectator an incident which purports to
take place at a little church in the country As we were
woman
in the midst of service, a lady,
her husband, entered the congregation in a a hooped petticoat. at such a sight,
digious
who
of the place, and had passed the winter in
all
The of
people,
them
bottom and some
who were
rose up.
little
is
the chief
London with
head-dress and
wonderfully startled
Some
stared at the pro-
at the little top of this strange dress.
In the meantime the lady of the manor
filled
the area of the
church and walked up to the pew with an unspeakable faction,
satis-
amid the whispers, conjectures and astonishments of the
whole congregation.
In spite of the spaciousness of the chairs and which were constructed with an eye to
settees
these enormities, they could not have been adequate except on the assumption that the
hoops were fitted with a folding mechanism which rendered them collapsible and enabled the ladies to sit with some approach to comfort. Sir Walter Besant enumerates some of the