Few faculties require right direction more than this. What multitudes of fathers and husbands have been ruined by daughters and wives whose whole souls were bent on making a sensation. No wonder the gentlemen do not propose. The rich silks of the day cannot be had for a wife and daughters, with the prodigious trimmings that are equally indispensable, under a sum that would maintain a country clergyman or half-pay officer and his family. The paraphernalia of ribbons, laces, fringes, and flowers, is more expensive than the entire gown of ten years ago. The Hon. and Rev. S. G. Osborne, in the _Times_ of Friday, July 23, 1858, says that, as a rule, “the acreage of dress and its value is in monstrous proportion to the persons and purses of the wearers.” As an illustration, we append a selection of items from a Regent Street milliner’s bill for £2,754 0s. 6d., which was proved in the London Bankruptcy Court, in September, 1857. “Bonnet, £12 12s.; sprigged muslin slip, £11 11s.; six embroidered collars, £15 15s.; pocket-handkerchief, £4 4s.; another, £5 5s.; moire antique dress, £10 10s.; ditto, £11 11s.; ditto, £12 12s.; ditto, £13 13s.; ditto, £18 18s.; ditto, £19 19s.; brown muslin dress, £17 17s.; court dress, £51 5s.; ditto, £55 10s.; parasol, £10 10s.; ditto, £18 18s.; point lace cap and pearls, £11 11s.; pair of lappets, £8 8s.; ten buttons, £5; dressing four dolls, £12 12s...!!” Such bills are sufficient to empty the purse of Fortunatus, and ruin Crœsus himself. “We sacrifice to dress, till household joy And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires, And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, Where peace and hospitality might reign.” So wrote Cowper. Are his lines less appropriate in our day?