OK PROPER CLOTHING. 
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O'iO 
a curve or a line that can be said to be beautiful. An ancient 
sculptor would have avoided it with horror ; and if the angels 
are allowed to look down upon the earth, and have their 
feelings kindled by its beauty, there must be one object amidst 
its charms that must excite in their minds mingled feelings of 
disgust and pity at its ugliness, and that is the clothed civi- 
lized man of the nineteenth century. 
Having said thus much of the use of dress, let us proceed 
to speak of its abuses. First, then, as all articles of -dress 
must be attached to the body in some way or other, we 
will speak of the dangers of their attachment under the 
head of undue compression. We begin at the head, and this 
leads us to speak of hats, caps, and bonnets. Why wear 
them at all ? Of all parts of the body, the head seems least 
to need clothing. A most beautiful, warm, and natural covering 
has been created upon the head, and why it should be covered 
by hats, caps, and bonnets nobody lias any yery definite 
notion. It seems, however, in hot countries that head- 
coverings prevent the too powerful rays of the sun striking 
upon the head, and thus producing a coup de soleil or some minor 
inconvenience. In wet climates, too, like our own, it is un- 
comfortable to have wet hair. So for one cause or another 
modern man and woman have got into the habit of wearing 
some kind of head-gear. That modern man may discover one 
day that it is unnecessary is not at all improbable. Some thirty 
years ago, he invariably placed a heavy cap upon his new-born 
babes, but recently he has found that his innocents do better 
without them. It is not then I say altogether beyond the 
bounds of probability that he may see fit to get rid of his own 
head-dress. In fact, the women a few years ago did nearly 
get rid of this article of dress, and I never heard that they 
suffered from it. But I am now to speak of the danger of 
compressing the head from the weight or fitting on of this 
article of dress. Children and women seem to be in little 
danger in this respect. The caps of children are fight and fit 
loosely on their heads ; so of womens bonnets. This cannot be 
said of the hats of men. The hat is a melancholy instance 
of the utter inability of man to throw off the shackles of 
custom. The modern chimney-pot hat, with its small brim, is 
about as ridiculous and unsuitable an article of dress as could 
possibly be devised. Who could for a moment see it on the 
head of a Greek Apollo, Mercury, Cupid, or Hercules, without 
roaring with laughter? Who that wears it does not feel 
its inconvenience? Its weight necessarily compresses the 
head ; and in order that it may resist the currents of 
our atmosphere, it is always pushed down upon the head 
in such a way as to produce a dangerous compression of the 
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