A few seasons ago when Audrey Beardsleyism was the rage and Oscar Wilde a lion in "sassiety" gay plaid stockings in Persian or Audrey Beardsley designs sold as high as $7.50 a pair, enough I should say to enable a poor devil like me to live a week. But this is not all. For spring or June brides of the "swell London sassiety set," fine white silk stockings cost $22.50 a pair must go with a wedding gown and trousseau equally as extravagant, the climax of fashion's freakish ways being the rose-made garter worn over said stockings. Parisian society which smells to heaven in fashionable odors has now originated garters made of primroses, harebells, narcissus, violets and lillies, the same being worn by the ladies at balls and receptions in Paris. Knots of blossoms are caught among the thick flouncings and ruches of the petticoats; and even the embroidered corset has its little bouquet attachment. The inside flounce of the most delicate evening gowns is made entirely of flowers, and the newest garter is simply made to conform to the general harmony of fragrance and color. The appropriateness of a flower for garter-wearing purposes is considered according to the degree and strength of its perfume, the most highly perfumed being the most highly appropriate. Violets are in great favor, and are used for garters worn with lilac, lavander, delicate green or white costumes. Again, as American women love to ape the fashionable society of gay Paris it may not be very long before in the great cities of the country we may not only have the American morphine fiend and cologne-drinker, but also the perfume faddist. Not long ago a Paris druggist communicated to a few French "sassiety" women the plan of perfuming the skin by means of hypodermic injections. The favorite distilled odors are violet and lavender. I know not how true it is, but I heard that this fashion is already being taken up by some of New York city's fashionable freaks of "sassiety" women. I have recently been engaged in reading two very interesting histories, the one of the rose, the other of perfume, in reading which I was deeply impressed with the fact that all the civilizations of the past, previous to their downfall, had their rose fetes, their festivals of flowers where luxury and license ruled, where effeminacy ruled supreme, their perfumed halls and extravagant balls and soirees. Before the fall of the Roman Empire, the wealthy abandoned themselves to pleasure, luxury and licentiousness and such expressions as "living in the midst of roses," and "sleeping on roses" had a deep and tragic meaning. Seneca speaks of Smyndiride who could not sleep if one of the rose petals with which his bed was spread happened to be curled. Cicero alludes to the then prevailing custom among the Romans of reclining at the table on couches covered with roses. Ah, my jeweled buddies, there were Adonises in those days!