1880.] on Fashion in Deformity. 409 



feet conld have thought of the possibility of wearing a stiff, unyield- 

 ing shoe of identical form for both right and left, and yet the very 

 trifling difference which is at present allowed is a comparatively 

 modern innovation, and is even now too frequently disregarded, 

 es2)ecially where most needed, as in the case of cliildren. 



The loss of elasticity and motion in the joints of the foot, as well 

 as the wrong direction acquired by the great too, are not mere theo- 

 retical evils, but are seriously detrimental to free and easy progres- 

 sion, and can only be compensated for in walking by a great expendi- 

 ture of muscular power in other parts of the body, applied in a 

 disadvantageous manner, and consequently productive of general 

 weariness. The labouring men of this country, who from their 

 childhood wear heavy, stiff, and badly-shaped boots, and in whom, 

 consequently, the play of the ankle, feet, and toes is lost, have 

 generally small and shapeless legs and wasted calves, and walk as if 

 on stilts, with a swinging motion from the hips. Our infantry soldiers 

 also suffer much in the same manner, the regulation boots in use in 

 the service being exceedingly ill-adapted for the development of the 

 feet. Much injury to the general health — the necessary consequence 

 of any impediment to freedom of bodily exercise — must also be attri- 

 buted to this cause. Since some of the leading shoemakers have 

 ventured to deviate a little from the conventional shape, those persons 

 who can afford to be specially fitted are better off as a rule than the 

 majority of poorer people, who, although caring less for appearance, 

 and being more dependent for their livelihood upon the physical wel- 

 fare of their bodies, are obliged to wear ready-made shoes of the form 

 that an inexorable custom has prescribed. 



No sensible person can really sujDpose that there is anything in 

 itself ugly, or even unsightly, in the form of a jDerfect human foot ; 

 and yet all attempts to construct shoes upon its model are constantly 

 met with the objection that something extremely inelegant must be 

 the result. It will perhaps be a form to which the eye is not quite 

 accustomed ; but we all know how extremely arbitrary is fashion 

 in her dealings with our outward appearance, and how anything 

 which has received her sanction is for the time considered elegant 

 and tasteful, while a few years later it may come to be looked upon as 

 positively ridiculous. That our eye would soon get used to admire a 

 different shape, may be easily proved by anyone who will for a short 

 time wear shoes constructed upon a more correct princi2)le, when the 

 prevailing pointed shoes, suggestive of cramped and atrophied toes, 

 become positively painful to look upon. 



Only one thing is needed to aggravate the evil effect of a pointed 

 toe, and that is the absurdly high and narrow heel so often seen now on 

 ladies' boots, which throws the whole foot in an unnatural position in 

 walking, produces diseases well known to all surgeons in large practice, 

 and makes the nearest approach yet effected by any European nation 

 to the Chinese custom which we generally speak of with surprise and 

 reprobation. And yet this fashion appears just now on the increase 



