Setting aside the slight difference of opinion which makes me think quiet reasoning would be as efficacious in inducing a change as any amount of raving, we, that is the ghost, medium, and self, most cordially agree when we discuss this particular theme. This being the case, albeit my years are comparatively few, I will briefly give our united ideas on the subject.

First then, I am much concerned for the little children.

The air is often dense with fog, yet so cold, that when we leave the cheerful fireside and venture out of doors we feel as though we were going into a well, or, to speak more mildly, as if a wet blanket had been wrapped round us. I look from my window on such a raw cold day and in the course of an hour I see many little children pass it, not one of whom in ten is properly protected from the weather. I shudder as I note the short cotton drawers, often not reaching the knee, worn by both sexes under seven years of age, or thereabouts, and the still shorter petticoats high enough above the first-named garments to display the handsome embroidery with which they are decorated. I look below this dainty frilling, often the produce of many an hour's toil which the mother has gladly and proudly devoted to the adornment of her darling, and I see several inches of blueish mottled flesh between it and the top of the little sock which only just reaches the ancle.

Looking again at the upper dress, I notice that its exceeding shortness contrasts oddly with its redundant width. My mother is also a looker on. She points out the short skirt of the little frock or coat, and with withering sarcasm asks of what earthly use that FRILL can be so far as warmth is concerned ! The child stoops. Forthwith the curt, full garment assumes an almost perpendicular position, and the sole covering of the tiny human biped-one is ready to wish, poor little soul! that it had feathers-consists of the thin cotton drawers which after all cover only a small portion of the body. My parent begins to hold forth in a manner which causes me to rejoice that her father cannot look up, and thereby double the torrent of words which she now utters in behalf of both.

I shall not attempt to equal her in eloquence, but, dear ladies, tender mothers, especially you whose position gives you power to lay down the law in matters of dress,-for it is well known that whatever example is set by "the gentle," "the simple" will not fail to follow,-listen to me; I plead for your little ones, and, in no selfish or interested spirit, beseech you to give their frail bodies some more substantial and fitting shelter from the cold. How can you bear to send them out, when the pitiless east wind is ready to flay their tender limbs, with those poor little limbs uncovered. You love your child, young mother? Any one can see that who witnesses the lighting up of your face when he lifts his rosy mouth for a kiss. Yet you who have complained of the cold all day, though the ample folds of your warm dress sweep the path as you walk, you, I say, condemn this tender little being to face the same degree

of cold as nearly as possible unclad from the waist downwards. The least breeze is at any time sufficient to whirl aside, or raise the full short skirts in which you deem him dressed, and leave him halfnaked. I, who am but a looker on, having neither part nor lot in the matter against which I protest, feel a thrill of pity pervade my frame, and fairly long to gather these starved youngsters round my fire, to chafe the little blue legs and encase them in more comfortable garments, which, however homely in texture, should keep them warm.

It is well known that no amount of satire which can be aimed at the ridiculous in dress will ever suffice to alter an absurdity merely because it is such. Everybody has read Punch's humorous attacks on small bonnets, and laughed over the comic illustrations which accompanied them. But it is a long time since we smiled at the tall footman carrying his mistress's bonnet on a salver behind her, or at the same appendage hanging from her neck, while a "blessed babby" nestled amid the blond and flowers within. Punch has given up these in despair and now wastes his ammunition on crinoline. And here again, despite the positive discomfort this mode-I speak from experience entails on the wearer, we know that the stronger the ridicule hurled against it, the more stiffly the hoops have resisted all efforts to collapse them, the wider the crinoline has spread itself athwart the civilized world.

If, however, any extravagance were merely to be regarded as a whim pertaining to a day, a month, or a year, and which would then pass away, leaving behind it no evil consequences, I would utter no protest against it. I might join in a laugh, but would never attempt to reason. But, unfortunately, the probable consequences of some of these freaks of fashion seem to be utterly ignored. Yet some time ago an eminent doctor stated that he had never known or read of so many cases of tic or neuralgic affections of the head and face as had come under his notice amongst his female patients since the reign of small bonnets commenced. To the insufficient covering allotted to the head he attributed the rapid spread of an agonizing disease, and he further asserted that the effects of this pernicious fashion will not end with the wearers of infinitesimal bonnets, but will be handed down to their offspring. If then children inherit a tendency to neuralgic complaints through the folly of those mothers, who not only suffer in their own persons but entail suffering on their little ones merely for fashion's sake, how much must this tendency be increased by the state of semi-nakedness in which the youngsters are sent forth to face our damp, cold, and most uncertain climate. Yet whoever thinks on the subject must be convinced that this system of clothing, or, to speak more correctly, non-clothing, will produce dire results which the loving but thoughtless mother who delights to see her child in the fashion never anticipates.

In writing this I would not be thought to utter a word of re

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proach against these mothers, or to breathe an accusation of want of feeling and consideration for the creatures they have borne and nurtured. So far from this, I believe there are few mothers who, once convinced of what will advantage their children, would leave any effort untried to procure them even a probable good.

And thus I judge those dear inconsiderate women who send out their little ones in insufficient clothing. They have looked only at that side of the picture which showed their darling Frederick, Charles, or Amelia Ann, dressed in the pink of fashion, never dreaming that the cost of the finery may have to be paid by years of suffering. And it is because I believe it is only necessary to treat the matter seriously and rationally instead of ridiculing it, which would but increase the evil I am anxious to see overthrown, that I thus venture to plead from my heart for the little victims of fashion.

Some parents have a notion that if children are not accustomed to wrap up they will never find it necessary to do so, and that by exposing as much of their children's persons to the cold as can be left uncovered without indecency-my mother says the effect produced by these short wide skirts is indecent-they will render them hardy. But there is a wide difference between coddling and starvation. Children should be encouraged to face a sharp breeze, and not shrink even before a "nor-easter," but they should be armed against its ill effects by warm and substantial clothing. The other day I heard a little fellow, whose mother was urging on him the necessity for out-door exercise, answer apologetically, “Please, mamma, do let me stay at home, it is so cold."

“Pooh, nonsense,'
"she answered,

66

'look at papa, he has been I would not let even papa

out, and you do not hear him complain. beat me at bearing cold." The boy evidently "didn't see it," and most reluctantly joined the attendant nursemaid.

Had I been on more intimate terms with the lady I should have asked how she thought "papa" would like to face the cutting wind, if, instead of broad-cloth "continuations," he were condemned to thin cotton drawers of the same length, or rather shortness, as those worn by the hope of the family, and with bare legs in the same proportion. And surely the child of five years old was, physically, no better fitted to endure cold than was the parent of thirty-five years.

The starvation system is unnatural, and nature avenges herself for the slight put upon her teachings, by punishing those who outrage her laws with new and poignant forms of suffering. Unfortunately though, in the case of the little children, it is not those who commit the outrage, but those on whom it is committed, who pay the penalty.

If, dear ladies, you are not already convinced by what I have adduced, observe and follow the example of the inferior portion of the animal creation. See how the birds prepare nests of superior

softness and warmth for their young, and how they, and many of the larger animals also, use their own bodies as a shield for them until they are as well able to face the cold as themselves. I might say much more, and in particular respecting the new form of disease so prevalent and fatal at this time, especially amongst children. But I trust the mere mention of it will be enough to induce a change with respect to the obnoxious articles of apparel, and that the little bare throats and purple limbs will soon glow, though invisibly, beneath substantial coverings.

And to my fellow countrywomen let me also say a word with regard to what fashion prescribes for them. In summer, crinoline and hoops were lauded by the fair sex as comfortable because they prevented the clinging of the dress and kept the person cool. Now the argument which was in favor of the fashion then, must at this season be a powerful one against it, and doctors hint at rheumatism as a consequence of wearing the above-named garments. However if the fair sex have a mind to brave the discomfort of hoops and despise the ridicule hurled against them from all sides, let me advise them to wear sufficiently warm clothing below their crinoline to prevent the possibility of physical injury.

In this as in other matters make fashion subservient to health, and for the sake of yourselves and unborn generations, dear ladies, let me conjure you to wear such clothing as will satisfy the demands of nature and tend to keep you in health.

R. B.

VIII.-LADIES' INSTITUTE.

IN the December number of this Journal the attention of its readers was called to that portion of Lord Brougham's speech, delivered at York in the course of the preceding month, which referred “to the wrongs and hardships of women.' Among these hardships Lord Brougham dwelt forcibly upon the condition of single or widowed ladies suddenly thrown upon the world, either wholly or inadequately provided for by fathers and husbands; and instancing the Stifters in Germany, he suggested the expediency of some measure being adopted in England which might tend to ameliorate the trials and discomforts to which so large a class of the female portion of the community is exposed. This suggestion has given rise to very general expressions of sympathy in the public press, and to various movements in private for the achievement of so desirable an object.

We purpose now to put before our friends and subscribers a plan calculated to meet the requirements of a HOME FOR LADIES, in conbination with a TRAINING INSTITUTION for girls and adults as governesses, book-keepers, clerks, and secretaries. On the advantages of a Training Institution for girls from the ages of sixteen

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to twenty, it is unnecessary to dwell at length. This department is intended to supply a want seriously and increasingly felt, i.e. by scientific training, to turn to practical account the ordinary desultory education of girls' schools.

The rapid advance which has been made during the last few years in the employment of female labor, and the success which has even more recently attended its partial introduction into railway stations, etc., warrants, and indeed necessitates, the practical training of girls and adults for those more responsible situations long filled by women in France, and from which there is every reason to believe Englishwomen will no longer be excluded when once efficiency shall have replaced inefficiency, and trained female labor be readily obtainable.

There are few among us who are not familiar with the painful and embarrassing position in which women of cultivated minds and tastes, reared in ease and comfort, find themselves when suddenly obliged to work for their livelihood. However carefully educated, however accomplished, their acquirements are for the most part desultory; and, in the first hurry and shock of loneliness and selfdependence, their powers become paralysed, the real hardships and discomforts of their position assume forms so gigantic as often to shadow their whole future, and lend to honest labor, in itself a happiness and a delight, gloom and despair from which there is often no after escape.

A woman thus situated knows not where to turn. Her friends are equally puzzled. Knowledge she may have, but she knows not how to use or impart it. Learning and teaching are two very different things, as she learns now probably for the first time, and when she flies to that refuge for the destitute, the governess's vocation, she finds her want of experience an insuperable bar to the few lucrative situations it has to offer.

Now the plan we are about to submit has a remedy in view for this evil. An adult class for the training of women thus thrown upon their resources will form a prominent feature; and, whether as governess or book-keeper, clerk or secretary, the advantages in obtaining a situation as member of a first-class institution are selfevident.

It is proposed to give a home to fifty Lady-Residents; a bed-room and sitting-room in one being appropriated to each, with the use of public drawing-room, library, and dining-rooms; the drawingroom being reserved exclusively for the use of the Lady-Residents and their friends, while the library and dining-rooms will be accessible to out-door Lady-Members, according to the rules of the Institution.

A house is at this moment in the market, which offers rare advantages both as to situation, price, and conditions of purchase, and the immediate co-operation of all parties interested in the subject is earnestly invited.