PETTICOAT PROTECTION.
IF ladies will wear Crinoline, clearly something must be done to protect them from its consequences. We must either adopt the Russian plan, and give up burning open fires, or else prevent the chance of female suicide through contact with them. As it is, we never see a lady on the hearthrug, without fearing she will make an auto da fe of herself. We have put down in India the practice of Suttee, but in England wives and daughters are consumed as well as widows, Clearly, if we wish to see advancement in our census, we must stop these female sacrifices on their idol Fashion's altar. Lives enough are lost through their shoes and tight-lacing, without our adding Crinoline as a depopulating influence.
    Unless dresses are made fire-proof, no one, while the present stuck- out fashion lasts, can wear them safely. As a deterrent from wide petticoats we should pass an Act of Parliament to regulate their sale, and should permit none to be worn without being marked "DANGEROUS!" The chances of incendiarism are so numerous, that, were a Crinoline Insurance Company established, it could not possibly withstand the constant claims that would be made on it. Fire-escapes should be provided in all drawing-rooms, by which ladies when alight might be rescued without scorching. As an additional precaution, the air-tubes of the petticoat might all be filled with water, and fitted wits,. the means, when needful, to eject it. Every lady thus would, in fact, be her own fire-engine, and could play upon herself the moment her. dress caught. At a moderate computation, a properly-spread petticoat contains some thousand feet of tubing; and such a reservoir as this would hold enough to put out any common-place conflagration. The - more cold water that is thrown on Crinoline the better; although we fear the rage for it burns with such a heat, that no cold water we can throw through our columns will, extinguish it.

Punch, 8th January, 1859