A simple pin for the dress was uncommon in antiquity, and its general use for this purpose belongs to comparatively recent times. Its place was always taken, especially in early periods, by a brooch--an outcome of the pin--which supplied the want of buttons. The brooch, an ornament of very considerable importance, can be traced down from the earliest civilisation, and is a valuable criterion in questions of ethnic movements. The story, however, of the growth of each of the different classes into which primitive brooches may be divided, the periods at which these ornaments made their appearance, and the deductions of ethnographical interest that may be drawn therefrom, must of necessity lie outside the scope of the present work. [Illustration: Safety pin.] All brooches, as has been said, originated from the simple pin, which itself was preceded by and probably derived from a thorn. At an early period this pin, after having been passed through the garment, was for greater security bent up, and its point caught behind the head. Later, in order that the point might be held more securely in the catch, the pin was given a complete turn, which produced the spring, as seen in the common form of our modern safety-pin. Thus constructed, the brooch, though in one piece, may be said to consist of four parts; (_a_) the acus or pin; (_b_) the spring or hinge; (_c_) the catch or locking apparatus, which forms the sheath of the pin; and (_d_) the bow or back--the framework uniting the spring with the catch. [Illustration: Romano-British brooch or fibula with bilateral spring.] From this primitive safety-pin, which is the foundation form of all brooches with a catch, developed the numerous varieties and patterns of the brooch or fibula of succeeding ages. Amongst these is the Roman fibula, which instead of being made of one piece of metal, is of two pieces--the bow and the acus. The pin here works on a hinge--the result of gradually extending the coils of the spring symmetrically on each side of the pin into what is known as the double-twisted or bilateral spring, and placing a bar through the coils thus made. From the brooch hinged in this manner originated the Roman provincial fibula of the #T#-shaped type common in France and Britain, and later the cruciform brooch of Anglo-Saxon times. The brooch with with a hinge was exclusively used until the revival of the "safety pin" with a spring, patented as a new invention in the nineteenth century. [Illustration: Brooch formed of double spiral discs of concentric wire ("Spectacle" fibula.)]