Apparel. "We run through every change, which fancy THERE is a very marked and wide difference between our moderns and the ancients in their several views of appropriate dress: The latter, in our judgment of them, were always stiff and formal, unchanging in their cut and fit in the gentry, or negligent and rough in texture in the commonalty; whereas the moderns, casting off all former modes and forms, and inventing every new device which fancy can supply, just please the wearers "while the fashion is at full." It will much help our just conceptions of our forefathers, and their good dames, to know what were their personal appearances: To this end, some facts illustrative of their attire will be given. Such as it was among the gentry, was a constrained and painstaking service, presenting nothing of ease and gracefulness in the use. While we may wonder at its adoption and long continuance, we will hope never again to see it return! But who can hope to check or restrain fashion if it should chance-again to set that way; or, who can foresee that the next generation may not be even more stiff and formal than any which has past, since we see, even now, our late graceful and easy habits of both sexes already partially supplanted by "monstrous novelty and strange disguise!" -men and women stiffly corsetted-another name for stays of yore, long unnatural-looking waists, shoulders stuffed and deformed as Richard's, and artificial hips-protruding garments of as ample folds as claimed the ton when senseless hoops prevailed! Our forefathers were excusable for their formal cut, since, knowing no changes in the mode, every child was like its sire, resting in "the still of despotism," to which every mind by education and habit was settled; but no such apology exists for us, who have witnessed better things. We have been freed from their servitude; and now to attempt to go back to their strange bondage, deserves the severest lash of satire, and should be resisted by every satirist and humourist who writes for public reform. In all these things, however, we must be subject to female control; for, reason as we will, and scout at monstrous novelties as we may, female attractions will eventually win and seduce our sex to their attachment, "as the loveliest of creation," in whatever form they runs. may choose to array: As "it is not good for man to be alone," they will be sure to follow through every giddy maze which fashion We know, indeed, that ladies themselves are in bondage to their milliners, and often submit to their new imported modes with lively sense of dissatisfaction, even while they commit themselves to the general current, and float along with the multitude. Our forefathers were occasionally fine practical satirists on offensive innovations in dress-they lost no time in paraphrastic verbiage which might or might not effect its aim, but with most effective appeal to the populace, they quickly carried their point, by making it the scoff and derision of the town! On one occasion, when the ladies were going astray after a passion for long red cloaks, to which their lords had no affections, they succeeded to ruin their reputation, by concerting with the executioners to have a female felon hung in a cloak of the best ton! On another occasion, in the time of the Revolution, when the "tower" head-gear of the ladies were ascending, Babel-like, to the skies, the growing enormity was effectually repressed, by the parade through the streets of a tall male figure in ladies attire, decorated with the odious tower-gear, and preceded by a drum! At an earlier period, one of the intended dresses, called a trollopee, (probably from the word trollop) became a subject of offence. The satirists, who guarded and framed the sumptuary code of the town, procured the wife of Daniel Pettitteau the hangman, to be arrayed in full dress trollopee, &c. and to parade the town with rude music! Nothing could stand the derision of the populace! Delicacy and modesty shrunk from the gaze and sneers of the multitude! And the trollopee, like the others, was abandoned ! Mr. B, a gentleman of 80 years of age, has given me his recollections of the costumes of his early days in Philadelphia, to this affect, to wit: Men wore three-square or cocked hats, and wigs, coats with large cuffs, big skirts, lined and stiffened with buckram. None ever saw a crown higher than the head. The coat of a beau had three or four large plaits in the skirts, wadding almost like a coverlet to keep them smooth, cuffs, very large, up to the elbows, open below and inclined down, with lead therein; the capes were thin and low, so as readily to expose the close plaited neck-stock of fine linen cambric, and the large silver stock-buckle on the back of the neck, shirts with hand ruffles, sleeves finely plaited, breeches close fitted, with silver, stone or paste gem buckles, shoes or pumps with silver buckles of various sizes and patterns, thread, worsted and silk stockings; the poorer class wore sheep and buckskin breeches close set to the limbs. Gold and silver sleeve buttons, set with stones or paste, of various colours and kinds, adorned the wrists of the shirts of all classes. The very boys often wore wigs, and their dresses in general were similar to that of the men. The odious use of wigs was never disturbed till after the return of Braddock's broken army. They appeared in Philadelphia, wea ring only their natural hair-a mode well adapted to the military, and thence adopted by our citizens. The king of England too, about this time, having cast off his wig malgre the will of the people, and the petitions and remonstrances of the periwig makers of London, thus confirmed the change of fashion here, and completed the ruin of our wig makers.* The women wore caps, (a bare head was never seen!) stiff stays, hoops from six inches to two feet on each side, so that a full dressed lady entered a door like a crab, pointing her obtruding flanks end foremost, high healed shoes of black stuff with white cotton or thread stockings; and in the miry times of winter they wore clogs, gala shoes, or pattens. The days of stiff coats, sometimes wire-framed, and of large hoops, was also stiff and formal in manners at set balls and assemblages. The dances of that day among the politer class were minuets, and some times country dances; among the lower order hipsesaw was every thing. As soon as the wigs were abandoned and the natural hair was cherished, it became the mode to dress it by plaiting it, by queuing and clubbing, or by wearing it in a black silk sack or bag, adorned with a large black rose. In time, the powder, with which wigs and the natural hair had been severally adorned, was run into disrepute only about 28 to 30 years ago, by the then strange innovation of "Brutus heads;" not only then discarding the long cherished powder and perfume and tortured frizle-work, but also literally becoming "Round heads," by cropping off all the pendant graces of ties, bobs, clubs, queus, &c! The hardy beaux who first encountered public opinion by appearing abroad unpowdered and cropt, had many starers. The old men for a time obstinately persisted in adherence to the old regime, but death thinned their ranks, and use and prevalence of numbers at length gave countenance to modern usage. Another aged gentlemen, colonel M. states, of the recollections of his youth, that young men of the highest fashion wore swords— so frequent it was as to excite no surprise when seen. Men as old as forty so arrayed themselves. They wore also gold laced cocked hats, and similar lace on their scarlet vests. Their coat-skirts were stiffened with wire or buckram and lapt each other at the lower end in walking. In that day no man wore drawers, but their breeches (so called unreservedly then) were lined in winter, and were tightly fitted. From various reminiscents we glean, that laced ruffles, depending over the hand, was a mark of indispensible gentility. The coat and breeches were generally desirable of the same material-of "broad cloth" for winter, and of silk camlet for summer. kind of cotton fabrics were then in use or known; hose were there No *The use of wigs must have been peculiarly an English fashion, as I find Kalm in 1749 speaks of the French gentlemen then as wearing their own hair. fore of thread or silk in summer, and of fine worsted in winter; shoes were square-toed and were often "double channelled." To these succeeded sharp toes as peaked as possible. When wigs were universally worn, grey wigs were powdered, and for that purpose sent in a paper box frequently to the barber to be dressed on his block-head. But "brown wigs," so called, were exempted from the white disguise. Coats of red cloth, even by boys, were considerably worn, and plush breeches and plush vests of various colours, shining and slipping, were in common use. Everlasting, made of worsted, was a fabric of great use for breeches and sometimes for vests. The vest had great depending pocket flaps, and the breeches were very short above the stride, because the art of suspending them by suspenders were unknown. It was then the test of a well formed man, that he could by his natural form readily keep his breeches above his hips, and his stockings, without gartering, above the calf of the leg. With the queus belonged frizled side locks, and toutpies formed of the natural hair, or, in defect of a long tie, a splice was added to it. Such was the general passion for the longest possible whip of hair, that sailors and boat men, to make it grow, used to tie theirs in eel skins to aid its growth. Nothing like surtouts were known; but they had coating or cloth great coats, or blue cloth and brown camlet cloaks, with green baize lining to the latter. In the time of the American war, many of the American officers introduced the use of Dutch blankets for great coats. The sailors in the olden time used to wear hats of glazed leather or of woollen thrumbs, called chapeaus, closely woven and looking like a rough knap; and their" small clothes, "as we would say now, were immense wide petticoat-breeches, wide open at the knees, and no longer. About 70 years ago our working men in the country wore the same, having no falling flaps but slits in front; they were so full and free in girth, that they ordinarily changed the rear to the front when the seat became prematurely worn out. In sailors and common people, big silver broaches in the bosom were displayed, and long quartered shoes with extreme big buckles on the extreme front. Gentlemen in the olden time used to carry mufftees in winter. It was in effect a little woollen muff of various colours, just big enough to admit both hands, and long enough to screen the wrists which were then more exposed than now; for they then wore short sleeves to their coats purposely to display their fine linen and plaited shirt sleeves, with their gold buttons and sometimes laced ruffles. The sleeve cuffs were very wide, and hung down depressed with leads in them. In the summer season, men very often wore calico morninggowns at all times of the day and abroad in the streets. A damask banyan was much the same thing by another name. Poor labouring men wore ticklenberg linen for shirts, and striped ticken breeches; they wore grey duroy-coats in winter; men and boys always wore leather breeches. Leather aprons were used by all tradesmen and workmen. Some of the peculiarities of the female dress was to the following effect, to wit: Ancient ladies are still alive who have told me that they often had their hair tortured for four hours at a sitting in getting the proper crisped curls of a hair curler. Some who designed to be inimitably captivating, not knowing they could be sure of professional services where so many hours were occupied upon one gay head, have actually had the operation performed the day before it was required, then have slept all night in a sitting posture to prevent the derangement of their frizle and curls! This is a real fact, and we could, if questioned, name cases. They were, of course, rare occurrences, proceeding from some extra occasions, when there were several to serve, and but few such refined hair dressers in the place. This formidable head-work was succeeded by rollers over which the hair was combed above the forehead. These again were superseded by cushions and artificial curled work, which could be sent out to the barber's block, like a wig, to be dressed, leaving the lady at home to pursue other objects thus producing a grand reformation in the economy of time, and an exemption too from former durance vile. The dress of the day was not captivating to all, as the following lines may show, viz. Give Chloe a bushel of horse-hair and wool, Of paste and pomatum a pound, Ten yards of gay ribbon to deck her sweet skull, Let her flags fly behind for a yard at the least, Let these curls be supported, to keep up the jest, Let her gown be tuck'd up to the hip on each side, And to deck the sweet creature complete for a bride Thus finish'd in taste, while on Chloe you gaze, But never undress her-for, out of her stays, When the ladies first began to lay off their cumbrous hoops, they supplied their place with successive succedaneums, such as these, to wit: First came bishops-a thing stuffed or padded with horse hair; then succeeded a smaller affair under the name of cue de Paris, also padded with horse hair! How it abates our admiration to contemplate the lovely sex as bearing a roll of horse hair under |