SIR,--It is difficult to pass an opinion upon "ladies' dress," because its chief characteristic seems to be that it is ever changing. We no sooner see a really pretty fashion than we hear ominous rumours--from Paris (?)--that some abomination such as the crinoline is coming in again, or the Gainsborough hat is to give place to the Pork-pie, or a small copy of the Toriodero's head-gear. We are told that costume indicates the phase or current of thought of the period and of the country in which it is worn; that it becomes sumptuous in rich communities and in prosperous times, but is sad and impoverished in times of war and depression; that it marks the degree of civilisation, of culture, of taste, and of wealth; and, like the other fine arts, has its glorious periods as well as its decadence and restoration. Perhaps it reached its lowest stage of ugliness, in this country, some thirty or forty years ago, when corkscrew ringlets, high foreheads, flat bandeaus plastered down the cheeks, evening dresses cut straight across the collar bones, flounces and crinolines, and all the other horrors that John Leech has so cleverly depicted in the early volumes of _Punch_ were the fashions that set off our types of beauty. May we then conclude that taste has improved since those days, and not only taste, but common sense? At the present moment we see nothing outrageous to find fault with, and much that is pretty to admire. It would take up too much space to go into detail: to discourse on hats alone would require a separate letter of some pages. I should have to show how some set off the face and others do not, and how it often happens that the success of a hat depends very much upon the face that looks out from under it. And so with the way the hair is dressed, &c.; and I need scarcely say that a pretty, graceful woman will make almost any costume look well if she puts it on with taste, whereas there are certain other figures that require special treatment. There are some, whom I would not offend, but who nevertheless are deficient in those graceful curves that Nature bestows upon her best art, who require farthingales, hoops, improvers, and even flounces to disguise the angularity of their structure, whilst others go the other extreme of rotundity, such as a lady I knew, who was taller when she sat down than when she stood up, and must baffle the most ingenious contrivers of European costume, and whom nothing but a Chinese or loose Japanese gown could make at all presentable.