It is the business of the Tailor, then, not only to make garments, but to study the prevailing fashion, and, indeed, to advise what alterations or slight differences in the cut and colour of clothes will be best suited to different people, since on the way in which our clothes are made our personal appearance will very greatly depend, and personal appearance is of no little importance, since there are few people who are not strongly influenced by it. The trade of the Tailor is one of which very little can be said in the way of explanation, since it mainly consists in cutting out cloth to the shapes necessary to be applied to each other in order to make the various garments; and as this cannot be described without numerous _diagrams_, and even with them could not easily be understood, we must be satisfied to quote the instructions of a practical Tailor on the subject of sewing.[3] [3] From the Industrial Library. And, first as to the different sorts of stitches, which are:—the basting-stitch, the back and fore-stitch, the back-stitch, the side-stitch, and the fore-stitch; also the back pricking-stitch, the fore pricking-stitch, the serging-stitch, the cross-stitch, and the button-hole-stitch; besides which there is a distinct kind of stitch for hemming, filling, stotting, rantering, fine-drawing, prick-drawing, over-casting, and also for making what are called covered buttons. The basting-stitch is a long and slight stitch, intended to be merely temporary, or to fasten together some of the inner and concealed parts of the garment. It is commonly used to keep the work in its proper position while being sewed. [Illustration: Sleeve Board.]