a suitable costume, as their present style of dress is quite
inappropriate to any kind of mechanical labour, and must be radically
changed before they can compete with men upon their own ground. As to
the question of desirability, M. Sarcey refuses to speak. 'I shall not
see the end of this revolution,' he remarks, 'and I am glad of it.' But,
as is pointed out in a very sensible article in the Daily News, there is
no doubt that M. Sarcey has reason and common-sense on his side with
regard to the absolute unsuitability of ordinary feminine attire to any
sort of handicraft, or even to any occupation which necessitates a daily
walk to business and back again in all kinds of weather. Women's dress
can easily be modified and adapted to any exigencies of the kind; but
most women refuse to modify or adapt it. They must follow the fashion,
whether it be convenient or the reverse. And, after all, what is a
fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of
ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. From
the point of view of science, it not unfrequently violates every law of
health, every principle of hygiene. While from the point of view of
simple ease and comfort, it is not too much to say that, with the
exception of M. Felix's charming tea-gowns, and a few English tailor-made
costumes, there is not a single form of really fashionable dress that can
be worn without a certain amount of absolute misery to the wearer. The
contortion of the feet of the Chinese beauty, said Dr. Naftel at the last
International Medical Congress, held at Washington, is no more barbarous
or unnatural than the panoply of the femme du monde.

And yet how sensible is the dress of the London milk-woman, of the Irish
or Scotch fishwife, of the North-Country factory-girl! An attempt was
made recently to prevent the pit-women from working, on the ground that
their costume was unsuited to their sex, but it is really only the idle
classes who dress badly. Wherever physical labour of any kind is
required, the costume used is, as a rule, absolutely right, for labour
necessitates freedom, and without freedom there is no such thing as
beauty in dress at all. In fact, the beauty of dress depends on the
beauty of the human figure, and whatever limits, constrains, and
mutilates is essentially ugly, though the eyes of many are so blinded by
custom that they do not notice the ugliness till it has become
unfashionable.