In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed _à l'impératrice_ in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and _Punch_ satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a _coiffure_ unsuited to people of certain ages, features, and positions--a wide scope for his wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if they had, they escaped _Punch's_ vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing, walking or doing nothing, the young women he drew were almost invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture opposite. [Sidenote: MERMAIDS AT PLAY] [Illustration: BATHING WOMAN: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not he!--He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"] Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour, details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see Parkes's _Hygiene_) at the time of the Peninsular War, but pantaloons--the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to _Pickwick_, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in _Punch's_ illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the "claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive till the late 'forties--they are mentioned in Thackeray's _Book of Snobs_, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties. The _dégagé_ loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by _Punch_, who traces its origin to the neck-wear--as modern hosiers say--of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned; the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of the Waterloo period, still held its own.