It cannot be denied that ugliness has reached its climax in men's dress of the present day. It would be extremely difficult to find a garment more hideous than a dress-coat; and it is impossible for any head-covering to exceed the stove-pipe hat in ugliness, to say nothing of inconvenience and detestable uncomfortableness. These sentiments were fully shared by one of the _Month's_ correspondents, a gentleman named Simmons, who "emerged from his residence at Islington" on the day of the opening of the Great Exhibition with the intention of showing to the multitudes who were expected to attend that ceremony the kind of hat that should depose, at once and for ever, the detestable chimney-pot. "It was, in fact," says the bold reformer, "merely a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned wideawake, to which I thought a feather--in these days of foreign immigration--would not be an out-of-the-way addition. I had contemplated my own features beneath it in as much variety of light and shadow as I could obtain from my shaving-glass for half an hour preceding my departure, and had arrived at such a satisfactory conclusion as to its effect, that I regarded myself as a sort of modern William Tell, about to release my country, by a bold example, from an oppressive and degrading subjection to a detested hat." A love of change is said to be inherent in human nature; but attacks upon custom--indeed, innovations of all kinds--are usually futile unless very special conditions attend the attempts. If the famous hat invented by a Royal Prince was received with overwhelming ridicule, as my older readers will remember that it was; a less melancholy fate could scarcely be expected for the wideawake and feather of the little gentleman from Islington. "My appearance in the street certainly created a sensation," says Mr. Simmons; "but it was one exceedingly mortifying to my feelings. Omnibus drivers winked at each other, and pointed at me with their whips. Occasionally a stray boy would indulge in personal observations, or a grown-up ragamuffin would sputter out an oath, and burst into a horse laugh, which to my mind appeared totally unwarranted by the circumstances of the case." The managers of the _Month_ very wisely placed this etching in the front of their first number. In all respects Leech is here seen at his best. The figure of the poor little victim of reform, the street-boys and their surroundings, are all unsurpassable; while to an artist the composition of the figures and the arrangement of light and shadow are excellent.