The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-07-10

small for comfort and with ludlerously
narrow toes,
Nor were shoes exempt from the PEE
vailing extravaganza in dress, There
is, for instance, a shoe shown in the eN-
hibltion which Is made in cloth of gold,
and the satin slipper of a Caribbean
court lady Is covered with costly lace,
The boots of Henry vi, are exhibited,
but not the shoes which Raleigh COW
cred with pearls-posslbly the latter
did not survive the courtier's pecuniary
difficulties. Sandals and clogs, boots of
Cordova leather, sabots Of beech wood,
and pattens which We're compromise
between the shoe and the clog-these
and hundred other forms (and hum
dred more in the Cluny Museum) attest
the fluctuations of taste In an article
which might at first seem so simple in
design as to invite very little variation
In shape. But though every climate re-
quires a footgear suited to its special
conditions, the most primitive patterns
are generally the most reasonable. The
| rawhide ravelin of "the hairy footed
Scot" which Is still used in some of
the more remote Hebrides, is rivalled
| by the tanned deerskin moccasin OF the
| North American Indian, so admirably
suited to the hunter who finds 1t reoui-
site to move silently after game in the
| forest. The Eskimo boot, in the two
prime necessities of neither freezing it.
self nor allowing the foot to be frozen,
| has never been approached by any 9TH
er device. Nor has the prehistoric san
DIAL, almost unaltered from those fig
ured on the Egyptian monuments, ever
been surpassed as protection for the
| sole against stony ground and burning
sand, with at the same time the maxi
mum OF GOODNESS.
The soft Morocco slippers of the
Moors are also admirable as a loose,
easy shoe, for people not addicted to
unnecessary exercise, though the thin
ness of the sole recalls the papery boots
made by the "artist" who was indig-
nant that they should have been
walked in, for 1--WE only make for car
riage customers" The Roman greaves,
as a defence to the legs, without at the
same time being an CIRCUMFERENCE, prob
! ably attained the limits of simplicity in
that direction. The heavier mail was a
retrogression, which, in its turn, after
gunpowder was invented, had to give
pace 10 the huge JdCk-DOOLS. III the
Georgian period, these, by a natural re-
vulsion in fashion, were supplanted by
a shoe with silver, gold and even jew
elled buckles, the long boots being re-
4 served solely for riding But, though
still partially used for this purpose--the
limits Of their uselessness being at
tanned in cavalry boots, and in the mar
row-toed and expensive "box-boot' by
which the feet of infantry officers are,
for some inexplicable reason, doomed
to be cramped--they have all but disap-
peared in civil life Coachmen, postil-
/ lions and fox-hunters still keep TO the
| tops" once universally worn. These
are what ethnologists know as "survi-
vals;" they live for a reason which no
man can explain from a utilitarian
point of view. In the regular sequence
of evolution, the jack-boot, with its roll
Of Spanish leather, became the top
and the top evolved itself into the He's
sian and the Hessian into the yelling
ton, the Wellington into the short Wei
lington, or butcher" and this again,
always dropping super1uities with eve
ny change, became the Butcher, and the
Butcher the shoe now quite as much
worn as the "lace-up." That, possibly
may go step further, and in time re-
semble the organ which by courtesy ii
is supposed to protect.-London Stand
ard