puts on a European dress. It may be possible for her when she dons European garments to assume another gait than that she is used to in Japanese; but it is naturally very hard to throw off on occasion a habit acquired from childhood. But what really led to the discarding of the European dress was not so much the uncomely form it presented as the expense and inconvenience it entailed upon its wearer. It necessitates the possession of jewelry which is useless in a Japanese dress; necklaces and bracelets are not put on with the latter. The foreign dress is, moreover, extremely inconvenient in a Japanese house. A man can squat in European clothes without much difficulty if his trousers are baggy enough to allow the knees to be doubled; and if they are creased, they may be set right again with a little ironing. He can therefore visit his friends in European clothes. With a woman the case is different. She cannot squat in a European dress. Her corset would inflict on her excruciating tortures as it gets out of shape when the body is bent forward in squatting; she certainly could not bow her head to the mat in the usual Japanese fashion. What trimmings she might have on her skirt would be irretrievably spoilt; and if she once squatted, she could not get up without assistance or going on all fours. In short, the European dress cannot come into vogue until Japanese houses are remodelled and furnished with chairs instead of mats and cushions. Moreover, the expense of having a fair wardrobe of both European and Japanese dresses deters many women from taking to the former since the latter are absolutely indispensable. Lovers of the picturesque may then rest assured that there is no immediate prospect of the disappearance of the graceful _kimono_. Largely as are the western clothes worn by Japanese men and boys, there is not much danger of their totally supplanting the national costume while the internal arrangement of the Japanese house remains unchanged; and that transformation is, as we have already stated, to be looked for in a very dim future. Still less probability is there of a similar change in the costume of our women as it is even more intimately connected than men’s clothes with domestic life. It is indeed as well that it should be so, for much as we desire to make use of the fruits of western civilisation, we would emphatically draw the line when it comes to the appearance our wives and daughters shall present at home. We may therefore leave out of consideration the western costume as worn by Japanese women.