Then mark that abomination—a swallow-tailed coat. Heavens! how ugly the handsomest man may look in it! and woe for the plain men, when they intensify their plainness with it!

Then see the knock-kneed and the crooked-legged advertising their deformity in tight pantaloons; and short, fat, barrel men wearing little boys' cloth caps on their heads! Ah, for every female goose that Fashion makes, I will find you a male mate, even to the wearing of tight corsets!

But, my friends, on one point there's a difference. "When a fashionable lady engages a female servant, she stipulates that she shall wear a cap on her head, and calico on her back, to mark the difference between herself and that servant—without which, I suppose, it would not often be recognizable." When her husband gives a dinner, the male waiters are dressed exactly like himself—in festal white neckties, white gloves, and hideous swallow-tailed coats.

How is this? It must be that the male creature is very secure of his position, socially, mentally, morally, and physically, to permit such presumption—nay, to demand it. Can any philosopher explain to me this mystery? I was "struck 'midships" with the idea at a festal gathering not long since; and turning to my male guide, philosopher, and friend, asked what it meant. His irritating answer to this most proper and natural question was, "Fanny, don't be silly."

I reiterate my remark that men's dress is to the full as absurd in its way as women's, and I am only reconciled to the idea that a man was intended for a human being when I see an athlete of a gymnast, of glorious chest and calves, and splendid muscular arms, skimming the air as gracefully as a bird, and as poetically; then I know how civilization has ruined him! I know, that man if he jumped, and ran, and wrestled, and walked, instead of sitting stupidly in a chair in the house, or creeping into an omnibus when out of it, and smoking and going to sleep in the intervals, would not be obliged to creep into these ugly tailor's padded fashions to hide his deficiencies, but could wear what he chose, knowing that the beautiful outlines of his form would glorify any decent vestment.

I walked several blocks out of my way behind a man, the other day, who positively "stepped off." What a chest he had! what a splendid poise of the head! what a free, jubilant swing of the arm! I hope he will come to New York again some day, for I'm sure he was a stranger to it, for he neither stopped anywhere to take a drink, buy a cigar, nor did he hail an omnibus!

Magnificent giant! I wonder what was his name, and had he a mother. If not—well, it was a pity he shouldn't have.

I wonder what are "good manners"? The question occurred to me the other evening in a place of public amusement. I was one of a dozen or so of ladies, wedged in a row of the usual narrow seats. At every pause in the performance, three gentlemen stepped over the laps of the ladies in that seat, carrying off in their exit, or knocking upon the floor, opera-glasses, fans, scarfs, handkerchiefs, and, almost, the ladies themselves; returning each time wiping their lips, and introducing with them a strong odious smell of tobacco. I respectfully submit to any real gentleman who reads this article, if that is "good manners."

Of course, I know it would be better if all seats at such places could be so arranged that gentlemen need not clean their boots on ladies' laps in order to pass out. But also it would be well if gentlemen took all the sustenance in the way of wine which they needed before starting from home; and if they could also bring their godlike minds, to defer smoking till they could annoy only the one lady, whom they have a legal right to annoy, it would add to the general comfort, as well as their public reputation for gallantry and politeness. Men generally object to going out evenings, "because they are so tired." Why, then, they never embrace the opportunity to sit still when they get there, is an inconsistency which we must place unsolved, on the shelf already so well labelled with them. I might suggest also, that if they will persist in cleaning their boots on our laps, in order to get out these narrow sets of seats, and if they will carry off in their exit our gloves and fans and opera-glasses, and if they will keep on repeating this little pastime all the evening, to say nothing of occasionally crushing our feet out of all shape, I would venture to suggest that they should mitigate the suffering by saying, occasionally, "I beg pardon," or, "Pray excuse me," or by some such little deference acknowledge the infinite bore of their presence.

Failing in this, I propose that each gentleman, on his return, should bring in his hand a peace-offering to the ladies in the seat, of a glass of lemonade and a bit of cake. Why shouldn't we be thirsty too? Mr. Beecher says a woman has a right to—no, I believe he didn't say that, but he ought to have done so; and if he didn't, "fair play is a jewel."

Mr. Smith exclaims, on reading this, "Horrible woman!" because, though a handsome man, he sees himself looking selfish and ugly in the glass I hold up to him. Now, Mr. Smith wouldn't say that, if he should sit down beside me and let me talk to him five minutes. Not he! You see I have him at a great disadvantage, away off at the other end of the city or over to Brooklyn. I could say the very same things to him I have just said on paper, sitting here on my sofa beside me, and that man would go on lying, as men will, to other men's wives' faces, and be so polite and smiling, that his own wife never would know him, if she happened in; and he'd tell me that "what I said was all true, and that men were selfish animals," meaning Tom Jones and Sam Jenkins, and every other man but just himself. Don't I know them?