Several of the shops in Shanghai have now pi torial natives pasted in their windows announcing the arrival of the new spring millinery, The sight of them stirs a train of thought.
Modern progress in every: phases, as we have understood, has always been secking incidentally to add interest to life and one of the chief advances claimed "by members of the fair sex, is the breaking up of the monotony, as it was considered, which was tg) life of girls and women about 30 years ago.
Certainly 20 years ago the girls and young "married wonien's pleasures, counted in sum 0" and dinners, were few and tay tween, while now with modern progress, evening enter are almost more usual than blank evenings.
But, although this progress has added' such gaiety to fami by slow digress it has robbed it of one annual excitement which in year's gone by would easily last a week and the glow of it would often perhaps not fade until some time after that, And hats, just hats, were the causes of the excitement and jubilation, provided, of course, that all went well. For the heart of every female stirred indeed, at this time of year, when she deemed iL me to take thought as to what creation she should place upon her head on Easter Sunday to attend church on that auspicious day, The choosing of the hat, too, was no light task. Easter Sunday was the oficial opening of the new season as far as fashions wore con-earned and the choice was obviously 'a matter which required the gravest consideration and the greatest care. {In comparison the finding of a hat to suit a modern costume would have been considered but child's play, and play thrill removed. at that, with all the Modern progress in dress is chiefly responsible for this change. Wandering to-day through the hat departments, with their spring displays, one cannot notice any very marked difference in the new hats from the styles which prevailed during the winter. The colours are much the same, and the shapes, the only difference' being a slight' use of straw with the felt, hats wholly of straw not being very many and even then not very gay.
But who does not remember the general awakening to be seen on Easter Sunday not so very many years ago—and the cartoons which the papers of the minister's view of his church? On the Sunday before Easter when dull, tired looking toques and turtans lined the seats, while on itself a most outrageous and sprightly flower garden nodied and bloomed at him from the pews, while the owners dreamed happily, instead of listening to the sermon, and made comparisons which very well knew to be odious, Nowadays, however, a new hat for Easter is not vitally essential and if one does shake an Easter purchase there is na. excitement greater than that attached to the Purchase of a new hat at any other time of the year. The thrill of the Easter hat has vanished, and although milliners murmur that flowery styles and eartwheel chapes will soon be in fashion again, we cannot believe that, once sone, it can ever return, x00 HANDWRITING
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.