Many right-and-left lasts are made _so nearly straight_ that the difference in form, and the benefit arising from it, amount to but very little. This must be remedied by the people learning what is to be desired, and making a demand for it. It is sometimes argued that the straighter the last is, the less liable is the foot to tread the boot over to one side; but this we hold to be a fallacy, and that the liability to tread over, is determined by the shape of that part of the last between the heel and instep. The form of the _toe or forward part_ has nothing to do with the matter. It is generally, however, an advantage to the foot, though not to the boot, if it succeeds in treading the latter over to the _outside_. It thus gives the boot a more distinctly right-and-left shape, and can hence more easily preserve its own. When it goes over _inside_, there is a good prospect of a big joint being soon produced. The last-makers have given us toes of many styles, from the turn-up toes an inch longer than necessary, to the stub-toes half an inch shorter than the foot; and from the round toe narrowed to a point, to the square one nearly or quite as wide as the ball. All that needs to be said of them is, that the wider they are, except the extreme just noted, the better for the foot, at least while the present lasts are in use, and generally the handsomer also; that the long toe is unnecessary, and therefore unhandsome; while the short or stub toe is decidedly awkward and clumsy-looking, besides being injurious to the foot, and utterly unworthy of toleration by any person of sense or taste. The true and most tasteful shape will be found near the half-way point between the two extremes in each direction. Whether round or square is of no material consequence. * * * * * Here, then, we have found several causes for the deformities of the forward part of the foot—the crooked great toe, the cramped and distorted smaller ones, the corns between, the grown-in nails, the big joint, and the increased width. The cause first operating to produce them is the wrong shape of the shoe at the inside, which gives the oblique position to the great toe. Narrowness and shortness are stronger influences acting in the same direction, aided still further by extreme height of heels, by changing, by narrow-toed stockings, etc. And it is especially worthy of being noticed that the short and narrow toes, and the high heels often adopted to improve the foot’s appearance, do thus inevitably defeat that purpose.