e should say that there must be a considerable inclination among our
foreign neighbours to what is both gaudy and vulgar.

When anyone complains to a milliner of the style of any of the
articles she has on sale, she replies that she is obliged to provide
for all kinds of taste; that it would not answer her purpose to limit
her supply to those who have a faultless eye; that, in order to make
her business succeed, she must be prepared to accommodate all persons,
and cater for them all alike, studying to please each individual in
whatever way she may be disposed to be pleased, and never presuming to
do more than merely suggest some slight improvement or modification.
Ladies are apt to take offence at their taste being too severely
criticized, and dressmakers do not always find it the easiest
possible task to steer clear between securing their own reputation as
"artistes" of fashion and good taste, and avoiding giving offence to
their patronesses. It is the public who are to blame. When some one
remonstrated with Braham for his florid and vulgar style of singing,
he replied, it was the people and not he who was at fault. It was
alike his duty and interest to please the public, and not to instruct
it. He sang to be listened to and encored, not to be hissed and
snubbed. It does not answer for any tradesman not to be able to supply
what his customers demand.

It is the public who are to blame. If they insist upon being supplied
with certain articles of consumption or of dress, the shopkeepers have
no alternative but to supply them. If ladies prefer what is ugly and
misbecoming, the dressmakers have to make it. It is the old story over
again of the demand creating the supply.

There will always be persons who do not know how to dress well;
who have ideas of their own to which they are determined to give
expression. When they think they are doing their best, and are
bent upon astonishing the world, they somehow appear to the worst
advantage. They endeavour to rival their neighbours in strength and
variety of colours; and, if they see a beautiful woman becomingly
dressed, they at once copy that woman, quite regardless of their
personal appearance, which may be the least fitted to the style which
has taken their fancy. It reminds us of the story of a fashionable
shoemaker, who, having made a pair of shoes for a lady who was
remarkable for the beautiful shape of her foot, was applied to by
another lady to make her a pair exactly