TIGHT STAYS, AND CRAVATS. 179 



There is something very forbidding to my 

 eye in a foot with a pointed shoe on ; I always 

 fancy that I can see there, comfort, and ease, 

 and symmetry, all sacrificed at the tinsel shrine 

 of fashion. Never be it forgotten, that tight 

 shoes and tight garters are very successful 

 agents in producing cold feet; and that cold 

 feet are no friends to a warm heart. The foot 

 of man is formed in Nature's finest mould: 

 custom causes us to conceal it, and necessity to 

 defend it from the asperities of the flinty path ; 

 but we never can improve its original shape, or 

 add any thing to its natural means, in the per- 

 formance of its important task. 



It were well if our bodily miseries com- 

 menced and ended in our shoes ; but there is 

 something fearfully wrong in our wearing ap- 

 parel at the other end of our body betwixt the 

 head and shoulders. 



What in the name of hemp and bleaching 

 has a cravat to do with the throat of man, ex- 

 cept at Tyburn? The throat is the great 

 thoroughfare or highway for the departure and 

 return of the blood from the heart to the head, 

 and back again ; and we all know that pressure 

 on the vessels which contain this precious fluid 



N 2 



