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CHAP. XV.] The hoop and crinoline served to keep the weight of dresses off the waist of the wearer and to prevent its clinging round her legs in walking. If they are reintroduced, this argument will be advanced in their favour; for, as Mrs. Oliphant has remarked, "Until we can find some means of lightening the draperies of the female toilette or distributing their weight better, it is always possible that it (the crinoline) may appear again." I have in Chapter X. described a means of lightening and distributing the weight of women's clothes, and that it is quite time that, in the interests of health and reason, some such means should be adopted is proved by the following quotation, which shows to what ridiculous extremes fashion is at the present day tending:—

"The crinoline discussion (says the Daily Telegraph) crops up so often that one is tempted to say let's have the hoop and farthingale back again and have done with it! The question now is, are women going to content themselves with the dress improver as it has been worn for some time past, or is the feminine figure to be "improved" at the sides as well? Small waists are in high favour—never more so. Bodices are worn open, or frilled in front that breadth may be given to the shoulders; and, for the same reason, slight women sometimes have a roll of horsehair placed beneath their skirt on either hip. This same roll has elicited an indignant protest from some who are sternly opposed to the encroachments of crinoline, and who fear a return to the obnoxious substrata of former times.