Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/523

* FASCIATION. 471 FASHION. usual, fluted, and often curved edgewise in cro- zier-like fashion. Fasciation is especially likely to occur in rapidly growing stems which are abundantly supplied with both water and food. See Malformation. FASCINATION (Lat. fascinatio, from fas- cinare, to charm, from fascinus, witchcraft) by Serpents. A power has long been popularly as- cribed to serpents, or at least to some kinds of them, of fascinating by their eyes the small ani- mals on which they prey so as to prevent the escape of the intended victim, and to cause it rather to run or flutter into the mouth which is open to devour it. As an explanation of this conduct mesmeric or hypnotic influence has been suggested, but the whole matter is now regarded as exaggerated and to a great degree fabulous. It seems that when anything really resembling such actions occurs it should be ascribed to tear so intense that the animal becomes stupid, or loses its powers of coordination, is 'paralyzed by fright,' as the saying is. Animals respond in just these same ways when much frightened by other causes than serpents. Thus horses and other animals when actually rescued from floods or fire have been known to rush back again to their doom, or else they are too terrified to move when an exit is possible to them. FASCINES, f:is-senz' ( Fr., from Lat. fascina, bundle, from fastis, bundle ). Fagots of brush- wood or similar material, bound together, with wire if possible, and used in the construction of temporary field works, construction of levees, jetties, breakwaters, preparing foundation in marshes, and sometimes for setting fire to an obstruction. Fascines average about 12 feet in length, but vary according to the object for which they are constructed. They are about a foot in diameter. FASHER, fa'sher, El. See El Fasiter. FASHION. The style of a brief epoch. The term is ordinarily applied to matter of dress, and will be thus treated in this article; but it also indicates an ephemeral taste for any object. The distinction, then, between costume and fashion, or fashionable dress, depends on per- manence of taste. If we visit Munich in the sea- son of some one of the great popular fairs, the men and women of the Dachauer Moos and of the country around the Starnbcrgersee, as well as people from the Bavarian mountains, which are a part of what we call the Tyrolese Alps, will ap- pear in the city with hats, coats, decorative sus- penders for their breeches, short breeches, barred and striped stockings and conical hats; the women wearing head-coverings of indescribable kind not seen elsewhere in Europe, and an ar- rangement for their short black skirts, very dif- ficult to describe, sometimes founded on a hoop- like structure, not at the hips, as in the fashion- able farthingales and paniers of the eighteenth century, but above them, just at the waist. Ihese are costumes. Ugly as many of them are, they are ancestral, dating from old time, and but slightly modified, at least in the nineteenth cen- tury, and in a sense unconscious — that is to say, the people of a given village have never known and do not dream of wearing garments of another style than these. At the same time the ladies of Munich are wearing garments based upon the Pa- risian style of the same season or of the season immediately preceding, and the men of this same class of society ale wearing partly English and partly French dress, the coats and trousers, hats, and the rest being closely imitated from one or the other of these models. The style of these gar ments lor both women and men varies from year to year and from season to season, nut only in the shape of the garment and the fashion of its tailoring or dressmaking, but also in the material itself iif which they arc composed. It. will be as rare at a certain time to see a black frock coat as it will be a few years later to see a blue one, and the changes in women's dress in the colors used ami even in the character and intensity of the colors varies very great ly. usually chang- ing slowly for a few seasons and then changing much more decidedly into a new style. This is fashion. But the dress of the country people is costume. The fashions are nearly the same throughout western Europe and in the United States of North America ; that is to say, the dress of the most wealthy class is nearly the same in all ; that of the class of employees, people of moderate means not capable of indulging every fancy, fol- lows at a slower pace, and therefore the dress of a French clerk will differ somewhat from that of an English clerk, and again from that of a man on a proportionately small salary in New York. Some few little peculiarities cling to the people of a nation or a city for a number of years, such as, for instance, the loose and long silk bow worn as a necktie, so common in the north of France, but rarely appearing in other countries except as worn by Frenchmen on their travels. These peculiarities, so far as they go, partake of the nature of costume. Some other peculiarities are merely attempts as it were of fashion which have failed to be universal. Thus, although Ameri- can gentlemen generally wear hats of London form, there have been several epochs during the past fifty years when the London hat was very much higher in the crown and more aggressive than any of those worn in America. It has been thought right, then, to discrim- inate carefully between the costume of Europe during the years following the French Revolution (see Costume) and fashion, which for Europe makes up the more notable record of the nine- teenth century, as being associated with the gov- erning and more influential classes. The wear of women has not deviated from the gown and hat with the other garment for street wear called by various names ; and for men continuously coat and waistcoat and trousers ; but these have va- ried in detail. In 1830 and in following years (reign of Louis Philippe) the frock coat was worn with skirts not very long, but cut so as to spread very widely, so that when the garment was worn buttoned it was extremely dressy in appearance, fitting the body closely and having a very appropriate fullness where it covered the hips. At the same time the dress coat worn for occasions of some ceremony and by elderly men who felt themselves of importance in the world had very broad skirts and was capable of being buttoned across the breast. These were the fash- ions in France, and to a great extent in England, though the cut of the frock coat was different there. These garments were of blue, claret-color, bright brown, and other decided colors, and the fashion lingered on in the United States to 1850 or there- about, at which time a person continuing to wear