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CHAP. XXI.] will be about right if on a level with this. The collar of the dress, if one is worn, will of course be sewn on above this line. While strongly opposing low-necked dresses, I am sorry to see that just now it has become the fashion to wear all but evening dresses so high in the neck that nothing of the throat is visible. This plan would perhaps not be objectionable in the winter if with the height of the covering there was no accompanying tightness or stiffness; but laces swathed round the neck are often fastened too tightly, and high collars of starched linen are in every way objectionable, preventing ventilation, hampering circulation, and being incapable of absorbing perspiration. The "Masher" collar is a thing to be avoided with horror—a very instrument of torture, and ladies should not be induced to wear it, even if their male relations have sufficiently taken leave of their senses to do so. If linen collars must be worn, as for riding, they should be large and not too high. Turn-down collars, like boys' Eton collars, look neat on the dark habit.

Tight collars and cravats round the neck cause headaches, by interfering with the circulation, and when the veins of the neck are swollen, as during drunkenness, by their preventing the return of blood from the head, a sort of apoplexy may result and death follow. It was not without reason that our grandfathers kept a boy or attendant to loosen their neckcloths, and those of their drunken guests, as in due course they subsided under the table