The extreme richness of the habits of those days were accompanied by equal extravagance in the furniture of Beds, advertised as stolen 1715, and thus described: "Four Curtains of damask, a blue ground and changeable flowers; the curtains lined with white satin, having a mixed fringe. A white satin Quilt to the said bed embroidered. Four flowered velvet Curtains of a yellowish ash-colour, in a border of the same kind of flowered velvet of a musk-colour; the border trimmed with green lace with a stripe of red, lined with a striped India muslin." Those were the property of a lady resident in Bedford-row, whose name is not mentioned. The Weekly Journal of January 1717 mentions the death of the celebrated mantua-maker Mrs. Selby, whose inventive talents supplied the ladies with that absurd and troublesome obstruction, that enemy to elegance and symmetry, the Hooped Petticoat. The same paper of a subsequent date contains an humourous essay on the advantages and disadvantages of the Hooped Petticoat. As I presume the reader with me inclines to the disadvantages, he will be pleased with a short extract: "I believe it would puzzle the quickest invention to find out one tolerable conveniency in these machines. I appeal to the sincerity of the ladies, whether they are not a great incumbrance upon all occasions (vanity apart) both at home and abroad. What skill and management is required to reduce one of these circles within the limits of a chair, or to find space for two in a chariot; and what precautions must a modest female take even to enter at the doors of a private family without obstruction! Then a vivacious damsel cannot turn herself round in a room a little inconsiderately without oversetting every thing like a whirlwind; stands and tea-tables, flower-pots, China-jars and basins innumerable, perish daily by this spreading mischief, which, like a Comet, spares nothing that comes within its sweep. Neither is this fashion more ornamental than convenient. Nothing can be imagined more unnatural, and consequently less agreeable. When a slender Virgin stands upon a basis so exorbitantly wide, she resembles a funnel, a figure of no great elegancy; and I have seen many fine ladies of a low stature, who, when they sail in their hoops about an apartment, look like children in Go-carts." Black and white beaver Hats for ladies were advertised in 1719, faced with coloured silks, and trimmed with gold or silver lace. Wigs maintained their ground in 1720; and white hair for the manufacture of them bore a monstrous price, if we may credit that that of a woman aged 170, of a very considerable length, produced 50_l._ after her death from a Perriwig-maker. _Original Weekly Journal._