"In the present age of political innovation, it is curious to observe the great veneration for antiquity which prevails in all our dresses and fashions. Queen Elizabeth's ruffs decorate our blooming belles; and our beaux are puckered and stuffed on the shoulders _à la Richard the Third_. But what is still more remarkable, is the total abjuration of the female pocket. Those heavy appendages are no more worn at present than keys at the girdles. Every fashionable fair carries her purse in her workbag. Her money and her industry lie cheek by jowl: and her gambling gains lie snug by her housewife. Her handkerchiefs, her toothpick case, her watch, and her keys, if she has any, are the constant concomitants of her visits; and while no part of the symmetry of her shape is altered or concealed by the old-fashioned panniers, she has the pleasure of laying everything that belongs to her upon the table wherever she goes."--(_Times, Nov. 9, 1799._) * * * * * "A dashing Lady of Fashion, inconvenienced by the new custom of carrying a bag with her handkerchief, smelling-bottle, purse, &c., &c., went to a large party the other evening, attended by a Page, who was employed to present the articles as they might be wanted. The Page was well qualified to go through the fatigues of office, being well-made, active, and just one and twenty. Should the example be imitated, Pages will probably be more in request than waiting-women."--(_Times, Dec. 7, 1799._) * * * * * "If the present fashion of nudity continues its career, the Milliners must give way to the Carvers, and the most elegant _fig-leaves_ will be all the mode. "The fashion of _false bosoms_ has at least this utility, that it compels our fashionable fair to wear _something_."--(_Times, Dec. 11, 1799._) With which most pungent criticism, we will take our leave of lady's _dress_. NAVY AND ARMY. No history of England, that I know of, has ever given us so graphic a description of the ways and means for procuring men for the Navy, as the Newspapers of the time, and in this, as in many other things, their help is invaluable. When we find from what classes the Navy was recruited, we wonder at what the men went through, without much murmuring; and, if their very moderate, and just, demands, had been met in a conciliatory spirit, or even, officially investigated, instead of being pooh-poohed, and shelved--there would have been no mutiny at the Nore, nor elsewhere.