The representation of “flat-foot” here shown was drawn from the foot of a labouring man in this county. He said he believed the deformity was due to his having worn thick tight shoes when he was a growing boy. He is most likely right in his opinion; for tight or ill-fitting shoes, cramping the feet and preventing the proper growth of the bones and the free play of the muscles, are a common cause of this evil. This is so especially among the agricultural class, whose feet are, from an early period, enclosed in stiff unyielding leather cases that are enough to mar nature’s best efforts to construct a plantar arch. The same drawing shows that flat-foot is not the only deformity for which “high-lows” are answerable. Besides the almost total want of calf, which is due to the wearer being obliged to hobble along, whole-footed, with short feeble steps, it will be seen that the great toe has not been allowed to assume its natural straight line, but has been squeezed athwart the other toes, so as to be almost at a right angle with the foot. No room at all is thus given for the second toe; it has been driven quite out of the field, and has been obliged to hide itself by bending down under the other toes. This is no uncommon state of things. Frequently it is attended with the formation of a painful bunion upon the prominent inner side of the ball of the great toe; and, in addition, there is sometimes a corn upon the first joint of the second toe, which is a source of so much inconvenience that I have known many sufferers glad to get relief by parting with the toe. I wish I could hope that the days of high-lows are numbered, and could believe that in the next generation they will be ranged with the things of the past, and that our children may know these enemies to the form of the rustic foot, only as objects to be gazed upon with feelings of astonishment and pity, just as we regard the perukes and the stays of our ancestors. There are, however, some practical difficulties in the way of the fulfilment of this charitable wish. There are two periods of life at which FLAT-FOOT is most likely to be engendered. _First_, in infancy, if the child be put upon its feet too early, before the bones and ligaments are strong enough to bear the weight of the body. Therefore mothers should not indulge their anxiety to see their infants walk very early; the pride attendant on premature success is liable to be followed by regret at finding that the children never walk well. Parents and nurses should be content to let the children crawl and roll about upon the floor, and should not encourage them to stand upright, especially if they be rather heavy or weak children. Children are quite sure to acquire the faculty of walking as soon as they are well fit to exercise it.