“We do not, indeed at first sight, perceive the arrogant absurdity of which fashion is guilty in going so far as to determine the shape of our feet, because we are not alive to the fact that the case is _peculiar_ to the feet. We only see it influencing the shape of the shoe, and come to the conclusion that it may regulate this, as well as the cut of the coat. To this prevalent opinion we yield, regardless of the influence on the shape of the shoe, and thereby on the foot. As well, indeed, might fashion one day come to the conclusion that _fingers_ are inelegant, and decree that henceforth the hand be squeezed into a conical leather bag; as well, indeed, might she in one of her freaks, forbid the display of our arms, and bind them firmly to our bodies, like those of children in swaddling clothes. “The shoe ought to _protect_ the foot, but it has no right to _distort its shape_.” Seeing, therefore, that the common form of boots and shoes, as now made, is not the true one, and that it arbitrarily forces the great toe into a false position, it follows that all the bad effects resulting from this false position are to be attributed directly to the incorrect form of the last and shoe. The first of these is a crowding together of all the toes, in which some are obliged to find their places _under_, and some _above_, the more ambitious of them sometimes pushing their nails through the upper leather, the rubbing and chafing they meet making them sore, while the more humble are glad to curl themselves down in any way that will give them a place of comfort. When the crowding is not so great as to force them out of place there is still a constant pressure against each other that is liable to create corns between them.