design to apply it on themselves. Suffice it if we assure them that until this means has been fully tried, they should not rest content to carry about such a deformity.

THE PREVENTION AND REMOVAL OF SCARS.

Whenever the face or the hands are cut, burned, or otherwise injured, it is of the utmost importance to see that the least possible scar is left. The parts should be carefully washed with cold water, until they are thoroughly cleaned and no longer bleed, and then the edges brought together very exactly, and fastened with sticking plaster. In large wounds, the care of a surgeon will be necessary to prevent deformity. Burns are peculiarly liable to leave behind them ugly marks, which it is next to impossible to diminish. We must, therefore, aim to conceal them, which, in some instances, can be very satisfactorily done by the method of tattooing with flesh-colored tints, to which we have alluded previously.

What is worse than this about these scars from burns and scalds is the tendency they have to contract, pulling the features and neighboring parts into the most frightfully deformed positions. During the process of healing, the surgeon will overcome this in great measure by elastic straps and proper apparatus. When it has once taken place, the cure is difficult. Still, for the term of a year after the injury, the scar is

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still pliable enough to be stretched. When it refuses these gentle means, it must be attacked with the surgeon's knife. It is true that it is often one of the most delicate and difficult operations in surgery to remedy these contractions, but with great patience among all concerned, it can generally be successfully carried through, and the parts, though never equal to what they might have been, will no longer be frightful or disgusting in appearance. Thus, an eyelid permanently drawn down, a chin fastened to the neck, two fingers grown together, or an ear pulled out of position, may be very much amended.

Thanks to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who introduced inoculation from Turkey, and to Dr. Jenner, who discovered vaccination, it is a rare sight now-adays to see any one in the higher walks of life pitted by the smallpox. In former times, it used to be the terror of life to every one who had a pretty face, for there was no means known to prevent it leaving its hideous traces, even if life itself was not lost. Now, we can but rarely entirely do away with, or conceal the pits it digs, but very much may be done to prevent the attack, and in those rare instances where that fails to protect the individuals the scarring can be almost wholly avoided by timely local applications. So that not only in a medical but in a cosmetic point of view, our century has here won a manifest victory.

Even those faces which are pitted by the disease can

always be improved, and some very considerably so. For this purpose, strong stimulating lotions are employed several times daily, alternated with gentle and long-continued inunction of oil or glycerine. In many instances, by steady perseverance in such applications very great improvement has resulted.

ON WRINKLES.

What cosmetic artist would not give one of his fingers to know some simple, efficacious means to do away with the furrows which Time leaves in the brow and cheeks? It has occupied the thoughts of many a one, and we could tell of dozens of processes suggested. They are different in plan, but in one respect are all alike, and that is, they are all of no avail.

The only suggestions we have to make are preventive, not curative. Let the skin be maintained in a soft, pliable, healthy condition, avoid frowning and grimaces which contract the muscles of the face, do not sit by a bright light which forces you to squint and half close the eyes, and maintain as much command as possible over the facial muscles.

It has been supposed that when once the skin has been thus corrugated into folds, it were possible, by stretching it with adhesive strips, to restore it to its natural evenness and smoothness. This has failed in every instance we have known it tried, and we consider it time thrown away. Undoubtedly half the lines

which seam the face of maturity are not those of years, but of passion, of chagrin, or of habitual contortion of the muscles. They can therefore be prevented, and when they are just beginning to show themselves, they can be diminished by a strong exertion of self-command.

In the artificial courts of the last century, and in certain circles of our day, it was and is the custom to plaster these inequalities with a sort of "enamel,” a ridiculous and harmful usage, which can only be done at the expense of an injury to the skin, and, what is not less pardonable, it can inevitably be detected by an eye at all practised in cosmetic arts.

IF

THE HAIR.

F we were inclined to commence this chapter with a text, we should have no difficulty in finding an appropriate one. For example, these words of St. Paul:

"If a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her.”

Or if our wish is to choose a graceful motto from some poet, what neater lines could be found than these:

"Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,

And beauty draws us with a single hair.”

All writers, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, join in praising with unstinted terms the advantages which personal comeliness derives from a handsome head of hair.

In all ages women have been deeply sensitive of it, and even when fashion decreed that the flowing locks should be cropped, it was only to supply their place with artificial ones of more luxuriant amplitude. Few