accompanying cuts. It professes to exhibit the sartorial characteristics of an epoch:—
Table of Waves.
| Type. | Tendency. | |
| 1790 to 1815 | Angustorial | Wobbling |
| 1815 ,, 1840 | Severe | Recuperative |
| 1840 ,, 1875 | Latorial | Decided |
| 1875 ,, 1890 | Tailor-made | Opaque |
| 1890 ,, 1915 | Ebullient | Bizarre |
| 1915 ,, 1940 | Hysterical | Angustorial |
The first plate in the book is dated 1893, and serves as a frontispiece. The costumes of the lady and gentleman are familiar enough, although we note with surprise that the gentleman's coat-tails seem to have a crinoline cast, and if the turned-up bottoms of his trousers are a little mortifying, it is atoned for by a triumphant attitude which disarms hypercriticism. Also the lady's posture makes it difficult for us to tell whether it is a stick or an umbrella she is carrying.
There is a pictorial hiatus of some years, but the text notes that crinoline for women enjoyed a sway of some years' duration. For, taking the tracings from the plates in the order in which they are given in the book, we find a subdued form of the article in the female costume for 1905. The ladies may well regard this plate as astounding. There is even a suggestion of "bloomer" about its nether portion, and if the hat is not without precedent in history, the waist is little short of revolutionary.
The next plate displays a gentleman's habit for the year 1908. The tailors, fifteen years hence, seemed to have borrowed, in the construction of the coat, very liberally from the lady's mantle of 1893. Apropos of this and the ensuing three plates, it is pleasing to be told, as we are by the author of this book, that the long reign of black is doomed.
