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Rh to inhabit such a medium as air! I know, when I have ventured on shore, the mere weight of my own body nearly bore me to the ground, and though my limbs were in perfect freedom I could hardly keep myself erect or walk along without a painful sense of fatigue. What must it be for those poor creatures with that mass of clothes to weigh them down, with that top-heavy-looking head-dress to over-balance them, and with that inflexible corset to embarrass their movements? Surely that very unnatural mode of life must make them very often ill."

I admitted that there was a great deal of delicacy among my fair countrywomen, and that much of it might be owing to the faulty character of their attire.

"Why then do they wear clothes at all?" said my pretty companion, "surely they have less need to wear them than we have, as the weight of every thing is so much greater in air than in water."

I explained, as well as I could without giving offence, that it would be considered indelicate in ladies to go about in England so scantily clad as she was.

"Indelicate!" she exclaimed, "why, I should think the indelicacy consisted in making themselves larger in some places than they ought to be by padding, and smaller in others than they really are by tight-lacing, in supplying a deficient complexion by rouge, in increasing the height at one end by enormous erections of false hair, and at the other by those preposterous high heels which nearly upset the wearers on their noses. Besides, I think you must be hoaxing me when you talk of the indelicacy of my costume, for I have read descriptions of theatrical