SHOES OF ROMAN LADIES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 319, 5 October 1908, Page 3

SHOES OF ROMAN LADIES.

The shoes of tho ladies of ancient Rome were by no . means the least expensive part of their dress. Generally- they were white, but-persons of opulence also favoured other colours, such as scarlot, yellow, purple, black and green'. These shoes , were richly'adorned with--fringes and embroideries of gold; set with pearls and precious stones of-the most costly kind. Eventually those of lower rank began to indulgo in. this rich footwear, so tliat .at the commencement- of the third century Heliogabalus found it necessary to publish an edict prohibiting the use of subli expensive shoes excepting to women of quality. ' ' Familiarity, as wo aro proverbially remiivled, breeds contempt, and to the'fact that women of all classes nowadays have. so much moro of men's society than used formerly to bo tho case a French sociologist attributes the fact that the marriage rate declines in his own and in this country (writes an English journal). When men and women see so. much of each other, whether it is in the fields of labour or in the social round, it robs their relations, wo are told, of "that glamour of mystery" which conduces to amorous "inclinations." Those with daughters are thus placed between the Scylla of providing their daughters with occupations and the Charybdis of contributing to a declining marriage rate I