When these modifications are clearly understood, the proving of the flat pattern on the table after drafting should produce a well-shaped and correct lining, without the misery of standing for hours in the ordinary way to be "fitted on." If finer touches are needed, they are of the nature of "moulage," or modelling; the different parts of the pattern retain their balance and relative proportions, and the length of the operation is much shortened. The majority of women, especially when past youth, are not so happy as to possess the theoretically perfectly balanced and well-proportioned figure which has been so successfully adopted by the best business houses as the basis for cutting high-class ready-made garments. Happy indeed is the woman who can "walk straight into them" without the offered "slight alteration" which so often spoils the cut and brings bitter disappointment to the wearer. There are few women who have not groaned under the waste of time and fatigue entailed by being "fitted on" under the hands of the "little dressmaker," or for that matter under hands of much greater pretension, with no idea of principles in cutting, who pinch and drag and smooth down by rule-of-thumb, producing garments without balance or ease, whose faults may be disguised by trimming or drapery, but whose discomfort is always present to the wearer. Women have in fact so long submitted to this tyranny of rule-of-thumb in dress-cutting, as inseparate from it, that, as is their nature, they continue to endure what they think cannot be cured. Nevertheless, the discomforts and uncertainties of this rule-of-thumb misery may be entirely eliminated, and it is for the modern woman to demand and insist upon its elimination. Let me especially recommend to ladies possessing the invaluable qualities in this connection of taste and style in dress, who may be thinking of taking up dressmaking as a profession, that as an important preliminary step they should master the principles of a good method of cutting. Let them make sure that the method can lay claim to this description; that it is reliable and not altogether empirical. Thus they will render themselves to some extent independent of the possible vagaries and misfits of their cutters and workers. The excellent courses of instruction now carried on in the trade schools already referred to should ere long create a supply of well-trained young women who will do their best work under an instructed head, and will be able to carry out intelligently her ideas and directions. Under such conditions there should be no room for failure in a business of this kind. As a result, the arts of needlecraft and of dressmaking will be raised to the plane of scientific certainty and success which is their due, instead of remaining at the often low level of the unorganised, empirical and inartistic occupations--a frequent source of financial disaster to their exponents and of perennial vexation to the helpless victims of their products.