string," as it was indignantly styled. The Prince of Wales, the most unlikely man on earth to interfere with the royal prerogative of Fashion, was appealed to in an almost piteous petition to interpose his influence and save the craft from ruin. This petition is a remarkable document. It contains the stoutest remonstrance ever addressed to an intangible despotism stronger than the power of throned kings. In the first place, it shows how many had earned their bread by the fallen trade. It beseeches the Prince to assist in giving employment to "more than 20,000 persons who, in consequence of the prevalence of shoe-strings and slippers," were in great distress.
"The first gentleman in Europe," as the Prince aspired and claimed to be, yielded just enough to show the petitioners how little he could arrest the rule of Fashion. He ordered his gentlemen and servants to discard shoe-strings, but it was like opposing a rye-straw to a mountain torrent. The petitioners put a plaintive sentiment in an apothegm of great wisdom and truth. They say, "Fashion is void of feeling and deaf to argument."
But if buckles were obliged to succumb to the dictation of Fashion, a stout resistance was opposed to her rule in the matter of gilt or metal buttons. The protectionists of those times ruled their trades with a rod of iron. The button-makers would not tolerate either competition or rivalry. No shoe-
