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Show BARE-FOOT CHILDREN. Several years have passed since tht practice of allowing children to go barefoot first started among the well-to-at, classes in England. A considerable consid-erable Impulse was given to It by the announcement in the press that little Dorothy Drew, Mr. Gladstone's favorite grandchild, was allowed to run about most of the, time without either shoes or stockings. Since then the fad seems to have spread in remarkable fashion, and, judging from the latest reports, it bids fair to assume the proportions of a craze. Already it is the subject of correspondence in the newspapers, and has provoked the solemn hilarity of Punch. Originally it was only in the privacy of their homes or gardens that the little daughters of luxury frolicked frol-icked with naked feet, but now it is no uncommon experience, even in the London streets, to see dainty toilets of silk and satin ending, somewhat incongruously incon-gruously in bare toes. As a protection against broken glass and other dangers of the sidewalks, scandals, of the old Roman pattern, are worn, and it is said that many of the principal shoe stores are doing a lively business in these articles. Perhaps the most curious curi-ous result of this latest whim is the sharp conflict of opinion, which it has excited, among the physicians. Some members of the profession, adopting the popular theory, maintain that the barefoot habit not only Js healthful, but insures the proper development! and consequent beauty, of the exposed member, while others hold that It is a dangerous and needlessly risky experiment, experi-ment, which, in any event, must produce pro-duce large, ungainly, splay feet. In support of their theory, they argue that the feet of savage races are generally of vast and unsightly proportions. That is a question for the anthropologists; but any one with eyes in his head may be convinced that there are plenty of well-formed feet among the shoeless urchins of the cities. |