perfumer's. It looks cool and
comfortable. Vast jars of dried roses and
violets, great glass vessels of divers-coloured
sweet extracts, suggest luxurious repose.
We may or may not believe, as we please,
that all the flowers that ever grew, or did
not grow, are distilled here into perfumes,
resembling in all respects the parent odour.
To our thinking, with one or two grand exceptions,
all perfumes are much alike. Lavender-
water, if it be properly prepared, certainly
suggests lavender— it is fortunate that Eau
de Cologne does not suggest Cologne— but
in a scent called new-mown hay, presented
to our notice the other day, we could no
more find the scent of new-mown hay than
of hot roast beef. Nevertheless, a little
perfume is pleasant enough, and this is a
good window to look upon, for the Sabæan
odours that hang about are as grateful to
the nostrils as the coloured vessels are to
the eye. The hairdresser next door lends
his aid to the sweet scenting of the
neighbourhood, and his wares, if not very tempting
by reason of their beauty, are suggestive.

Does any lady ever look at the arrangement
of any other ladies' hair? Does any
lady ever look into a hairdresser's shop?
If so, how does the hideous chignon, in its
present proportions, hold its ground? If
any woman's head grew into such
monstrous shapes as may now be seen in all
directions wherever women are congregated
together, it would be a cause of mourning
to her family, of consultation among
eminent surgeons, and she would probably
spend the greater part of her time in
judicious seclusion. Here shall be a woman
with small delicate features, a small head,
and of small stature. Instead of making
the most of the natural beauties with which
she is gifted, she frizzles, and cuts, and
gums her front hair into all sorts of
uncouth forms, and surmounts her back hair
with an enormous ball of somebody else's
tresses! The lady appears to have two
heads, one (the artificial) considerably
larger than the other. The hat has to be
perched on the nose, and a most preposterous
result is presented. However, there
is one virtue about the chignon. It is
honest. There's no deception, gentlemen.
Even if the ladies were desirous of trying
to lead people to suppose that the porters'
knots on their heads are composed of their
own hair it would be useless. For the
hairdressers, anxious to advertise their
wares, have rendered that deception an
impossibility. Their shops are full of
chignons. Plain chignons ; frizzed chignons;
chignons woven into a pattern similar to
the large basket work used chiefly for
waste paper baskets ; chignons with
supplementary curls; chignons with straight
flimsy tresses pendent from them ; chignons
of every variety, have long been familiar to
the male observer. As we look into our
fashionable hairdresser's, moreover, we
become aware of long and thick plaits of hair,
of arrangements of curls, and of similar
devices, braids, and bands, to a most astonishing
extent. And these hirsute deceptions
are evidently not intended solely for elderly
ladies, as were the fronts (hideous devices!)
of the bygone generation, but for ladies of
all ages. It would seem as if a real female
head of hair were not to be found in these
times. The " glory of a woman is in her
hair" we are told: but nothing is said
about the glory being attainable by the use
of somebody else's hair. Men have their
faults, Heaven knows, but in matters of
this sort they show a little more sense
than women. It is fashionable to wear a
beard, and most men's faces are improved
by it ; yet false beards, chin-chignons so to
speak, have not yet become popular. We
are afraid, however, to cry out too loudly
against the chignon. Female taste is a
greusome thing to meddle with, and it is
very possible that a sudden change might
be made, and we might find ladies with
their hair, whether scanty or abundant,
plastered tight down to their heads. So
it was with crinoline. In moderation and
in its earlier days it was a graceful and
convenient fashion. The convenient and
graceful period very quickly vanished.
The era of iron hoops, of horsehair
substances many inches thick, of enormous
size and utter unmanageableness, set in.
The crinoline became an instrument of
torture to wretched men, and must have
been most inconvenient and uncomfortable
to its wearers. When, at last, the fashion
changed, was the sensible part of the dress
retained, and the absurd rejected ? Not a
bit of it. Horrible straight clinging skirts
with long trailing trains succeeded, and on
the whole it may be said that the tyranny
of fashion is worse than it was.

Occasionally in some of the more retired
streets in this part of town (Regent-street
is not far off from where we stand,
and Bond-street is handy) the shop-window
amateur comes across mysterious half-
blinds in ground-floor windows, severely
inscribed with a single name. Pugslumby,
for instance, puts his name in his window