Milliners and dressmakers made certain improvements in small matters, and, as is always the case, in default of new inventions, they endeavoured to revive, if only for a very brief period, some of the fashions of the past. There was a great variety of girdles and belts in 1860, viz.: long and wide ones matching the gown trimmings; long, plain sashes, the ends trimmed with bands of velvet, and fringe; also waist-bands in Russian or German leather, hand embroidered, or braided in gold and beads. In 1861, wide velvet belts called “Medici” were worn, and since that time sashes have become an important article of attire, on account of their forming part of the national dress of Alsace and Lorraine. Bands and belts of all sorts seemed to indicate, even at that period, the metal belts that were afterwards fashionable in 1875. In 1861, bands of gold, either straight or diadem shaped, were worn on the head, and were extremely becoming to dark-haired women. Large gold combs, with a heavy ring to hold the hair, velvet coronets with gold beads or buttons, velvet twists and aigrettes, feather head-dresses, bunches of flowers, velvet bows, and “Ceres” wreaths were very fashionable. The favourite style of dressing the hair was in very large rolls, with a bunch of berries and ash privet on the top of the head; or a wreath of hops and foliage; or one of oak leaves with gold acorns, and a gold aigrette in the centre. Wreaths of cornflower, with wheat-ears meeting over the forehead, were “Ceres” wreaths. These seem to us to have been among the last styles arranged with order, and in which the talent of the hair-dresser might manifest itself or produce any artistic result. The fashion of wearing false and dyed hair was about to reappear, and French ladies were to put in practice the axiom, that “beautiful disorder is an effect of art.” A curious fact attracted the attention of Parisian society in 1861; and the ladies promptly discarded all green materials. In a professional journal, the _Union Médicale_, the following paragraph appeared:— “A young married lady who had gone to a party, wearing a pale green satin gown, was attacked, after dancing several quadrilles, with sensations of numbness and want of power in the lower limbs, tightness in the chest, vertigo, and headache, and was obliged to return home. The symptoms gradually abated, but the feeling of weakness in the abdominal region lasted until the third day. No special cause, such as tight lacing, &c., could be discovered, and suspicion having been directed to the colour of the lady’s gown, a chemical analysis was made, and the presence of a quantity of arsenite of copper detected. It is the opinion of Professor Blasius, that the movement produced by dancing might, especially with dresses of the ample width required by the present fashion, suffice to detach a quantity of the arsenical dye, which on being absorbed by the lungs would give rise to symptoms of arsenical poisoning.”