bandages have become deadened, and pain ceases, the muscles below the knee have shrunk for want of use, and the feet, the front parts of which have been completely destroyed or doubled under, are reduced to mere stumps, on which locomotion is about as easy as it would be if the legs from the knees downwards were made of wood.
Any one reading this description will of course exclaim, "O how shocking! Thank goodness we have nothing like that in civilized Europe." The exclamation is perhaps natural, for we are all rather given to seeing the mote in our neighbour's eye, but not the beam in our own; but in the matter of its feet, civilized Europe has much reason for complaint.
The persistence of the pointed toe, which has been fashionable for many centuries past, is indeed one of the most remarkable examples of the survival of the unfittest which can be found. It is made upon a last shaped in front like a wedge, so that the side of the boot or shoe which should accommodate the big toe is precisely similar to that which covers the little toe. Now, if the wearers of these boots were in reality what dress-reformers may euphemistically feel inclined to call them, this arrangement would not be at all amiss, for it is admirably suited to clothe a foot which has a great toe in the middle and a little toe each side of it, like that of a goose; but that the human foot, constructed as it is, can be crammed into a receptacle so much smaller than itself and of so different a
