slaughter brought about by the conspicuousness of 

 their attire. 



THE RETURN TO THE COMMON-SENSE AGE IN CLOTHING 



What the immediate cause may have been that 

 led up to the abandonment of the extravagant and 

 grotesque costumes of the eighteenth century and the 

 gradual adoption of men's clothing which reverted 

 almost to primitive simplicity, is difficult to say. It 

 is probable that no single cause was responsible for 

 this change, any more than for the other revolutionary 

 changes that make the nineteenth century a distinctive 

 one in the history of the world. 



It is difficult to show that the enormous strides made 

 in scientific discovery had any direct influence upon 

 fashions in clothing; and yet it is probable that indi- 

 rectly, at least, this influence was enormous. The 

 discoveries in science explained in a common-sense 

 way many hitherto mysterious phenomena and tended 

 paradoxically to simplify, while extending, all fields 

 of thought. And since this general tendency was so 

 universal, it may be that it affected people's taste in 

 clothing as well as their views in many other fields of 

 thought. 



In recent years the great revolution, not only in 

 fashions of clothing, but also in the methods of making 

 garments, has been influenced enormously by the sew- 

 ing-machine. But sewing-machines played no part 

 in the beginning of this revolution, as they were not 

 then invented. It must have been some other in- 

 fluence, therefore, which gradually and unconsciously 



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