ANYONE looking at the Ladies’ Page in his newspaper would find it difficult to believe that the country is engaged in a war that has imperilled the nation’s very existence and, in any case, will have to be carried on at a cost that will make us poor for generations, and has already brought death and desolation into countless homes. Nevertheless, as though the world were wagging as in pre-war days, the freaks of feminine fashion seem to have attained an appalling height of absurdity and extravagance. Even in newspapers which, in some of their columns, preach the very necessary doctrine of economy and sobriety of living, there are found articles gravely stating that the early Victorian coiffure must be revived this season because the present mode of toilet requires it — and other nonsense of that sort. So long as the Press admits this fatuous stuff into its columns it is evident that, in some quarters at least, the war is not being taken seriously at all: it might, in fact, be going on in another planet. But, at all events, the Church ought now to discourage the follies it permitted at weddings before the war. The chief bridesmaid at a London wedding the other day was described as a lovely Dresden shepherdess. The marriage ceremony ought not to be degraded into a fancy dress performance, and, at churches where Dresden shepherdesses are likely to appear, perhaps a sumptuary notice plainly printed and set up for all to read might be of some effect.

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