1 70 LIFE OF FLOWER 



on a Friday Evening lecture at the Royal Institution, 

 delivered on yth May 1 880, and first published in the 

 Proceedings of the Institution for the same year. In its 

 separate, and more fully illustrated form, it was issued in 

 1 88 1. This is certainly one of Flower's most original 

 efforts, touching upon ground much of which has 

 received but little notice from either earlier or later 

 writers. The subjects discussed include the origin of 

 fashion ; mutilations of domesticated animals by man 

 for the sake of fashion ; fashion in hair and in finger- 

 nails ; tattooing ; fashion in noses, ears, lips, teeth, 

 and head, the latter being illustrated by the curious 

 custom prevalent among certain widely sundered races 

 of forcibly compressing the cranium in infancy by 

 means of bandages, so as to permanently modify and 

 alter its contour to a greater or less degree. Analogous 

 to this compression of the head is the crippling by 

 bandages of the feet of Chinese female infants, which 

 is described in some detail. But the author is of opinion 

 that European nations are scarcely less to blame in the 

 matter of distorting the feet for the sake of fashion ; 

 and pointed-toed and high-heeled boots and shoes come 

 in for his most severe condemnation. Neither, as 

 mentioned in the first chapter, was he less scathing 

 in his diatribes against the corset and tight-lacing. 

 That the last-mentioned article of female attire is 

 likewise charged in certain instances with being the 

 inducing cause of cancer was however probably un- 

 known to him. 



That these strictures against the prevalent fashions of 

 our own days had little or no practical result (certainly 

 none in the case of the female sex), may be taken for 



