tates of Fashion" was copiously
furnished. These sketches appear with the present article.

Fashion in dress, according to the twentieth century author,
notwithstanding its apparent caprice, has always been governed by
immutable laws. But these laws were not recognised in the benighted
epoch in which we happen to live at present. On the contrary, Fashion is
thought a whim, a sort of shuttlecock for the weak-minded of both sexes
to make rise and fall, bound and rebound with the battledore
called--social influence. But it will interest a great many people to
learn that Fashion assumed the dignity of a science in 1940. Ten years
later it was taken up by the University of Dublin. By the science as
taught by the various Universities later on were explained those points
in the history, manners, and literature of our own ancestors which were
formerly obscure and, in fact, unknown. They were also, by certain
strict rules, enabled to foretell the attire of posterity. Here is a
curious passage from the introductory chapter to the book:--

"Cigars went out of fashion twenty years ago. Men and women consumed so
much tobacco that their healths were endangered. The laws of Nature were
powerless to cope with the evil. Not so the laws of Fashion, which at
once abated it. It will, however, return in thirty-one years. In 1790
Nature commanded men to bathe. They laughed at Nature. In 1810 Fashion
did the same thing. Men complied, and daily cold baths became
established. In 1900 it was pushed to extremes. The ultra-sect cut holes
in the ice and plunged into the water. The fashion changed. For forty
years only cads bathed."

The following table is also interesting, and should be borne in mind in
considering the accompanying cuts. It professes to exhibit the
sartorial characteristics of an epoch:--

TABLE OF WAVES.

Type. Tendency.
1790 to 1815 Angustorial Wobbling
1815 " 1840 Severe Recuperative
1840 " 1875 Latorial Decided
1875 " 1890 Tailor-made Opaque
1890 " 1915 Ebullient Bizarre
1915 " 1940 Hysterical Angustorial

[Illustration: 1893]

[Illustration: 1905]

The first plate in the book is dated 1893, and serves as a frontispiece.
The costumes of the lady and gentleman are familiar enough, although we
note with surprise that the gentleman's coat-talks seem to have a
crinoline cast, and if the turned-up bottoms of his trousers are a