inhabitants of the City of the Angels.
"However," I said, as we drove into Puebla,
"we shall see — we shall see."

         A PLEA FOR BARE FEET.

I SAW in the newspapers, not long ago, a
piteous appeal from a clergyman in one of the
metropolitan east-end parishes —in behalf of
the poor, and especially of the little children—
who had, as the reverend gentleman pathetically
asserted, "scarcely a shoe or stocking
to their poor little feet." Now, as I went
barefooted myself when a "wee callant," as most
Scottish lads and lasses do in the rural districts,
whether their parents be rich or poor, or of
the decent middle class, I bethought myself that
much might be said on behalf of bare feet
for young children, whether as regarded health,
cleanliness, beauty, or economy.

The late Admiral Sir Charles Napier, once
said in my hearing, that until he was twelve
years of age, he never wore shoe or boot unless
he went into a town; and that he was always
glad to get back into the country again and
take off the encumbrance from his feet and
legs. Sir Charles was proud of his agility, and
when close upon three score years and ten,
could dance the Highland Fling and the Gillie
Callum, with a grace and alertness, which men
young enough to be his grandsons might have
envied. He attributed much of his vigour to his
early training, and to the fact that his feet had
been left in his childhood and youth to the
wholesome regimen of Scottish out-door life, to
develop themselves as nature intended. Sir Charles
Napier's experience was not peculiar, as many
a sturdy Scot in every part of the world can
testify. Every one who has travelled, either
in the Highlands or the Lowlands, must have
noticed the legs bare and shapely, and the neat
ankles and feet of the lads, and especially of
the lasses in the glens, and on the moors, and
in the streets of the towns and villages; and
if he were a reader of Robert Burns, have thought
upon the lines, where he describes, in the guise
of a rural maiden, the genius of Caledonia,
without shoe or stocking, as a spirit should be.

          Down flowed her robe o' tartan sheen,
          Till half a leg was scrimply seen,
          And such a leg! My bonnie Jean
          Alone could peer it!

Most children in rural Scotland are innocent
of all patronage of the craft of St. Crispin, and
love, as the immortal song says, to paidle in
the burns that all over the mountain land are
as plentiful as meadows in England.

"Paidle?" exclaims the English reader—
"what is paidling?"' Nothing, my friend,
but paddling about in the water with bare feet
—a very favourite diversion with the children
of the glens and the mountains, and the
recollection of which, when brought to mind in a
company of Scotsmen by the singing of what
may be called their national song, invariably
arouses their enthusiasm, and fills them with
patriotic emotion.

It can scarcely be denied that a bare foot and
leg is a more picturesque object than a foot with
an old, patched, down-trodden boot or shoe,
and a dirty darned stocking. But for young
people the bare foot has other than artistic
and aesthetic recommendations, and much may
be said in favour of its economy, and, what
is far more important, of its healthfulness.
Nothing in the back slums of English cities is
more suggestive of squalor and misery than
the unsuccessful attempts of the poor to be
decently shod. A ragged coat or gown is less
suggestive of extreme want than the forlorn
boots and shoes of the children, and the filthiness
of their stockings. And yet the poor of
England must spend a considerable portion of
their scanty earnings in the attempt to procure
what custom, habit, use, and the general
consent of society, agree to think indispensable
pieces of attire. If it be estimated that the
number of poor children under twelve years of
age living in the rural districts and cities of
England is three millions — a very moderate
calculation — and that each child costs five
shillings a year for such poor boots, shoes, and
stockings as its parents can purchase, we have
a sum of no less than seven hundred and fifty
thousand pounds per annum expended for a
purpose which the children of the poor Scotch,
as well as the Irish, neither think essential
nor agreeable; and if the annual sum be
multiplied by twelve, we have no less than nine
millions of pounds sterling lost to the parents,
without any real advantage to the children.
Among the poorest of the poor, would it not be
an advantage if the share contributed by them
to this large total of wealth were expended in
bread and butter, and the other food required,
or if a little share of it went to pay the school
fees? There is no greater reason in nature
why the feet should be covered than the hands
or the face; and a handsome foot is, as
everybody knows, as pleasant an object as a
well-shaped hand. And if the hand could only be
cramped by the glove a quarter as much as the
foot is cramped by the shoemakers, there would
scarcely be a pretty hand left in all England,
unless it belonged to some strong-minded
person of either sex who was bold and firm
enough to set fashion at defiance, and to refuse
to outrage the simplicity of nature.

As regards health, grace, and agility, we have
but to ask ourselves whence come corns and
bunions, and how continually the sufferers
from these painful callosities, are prevented by
the torture they inflict, from taking the walking
exercise which is alike the cheapest, the
most healthful, and the most agreeable, to be
convinced that of all the handicrafts that
minister to the wants and the comforts of man,
that of the shoemaker could be most easily
and advantageously dispensed with. In England,
among rich and poor alike, the normally
shaped foot of an adult is very seldom to be
seen, as any doctor or surgeon can testify
out of his experience. In fact, the feet of
most men and women are deformed, and the
great toe forced from its natural position in a
curve towards the little toe, which, in like