Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/649

 meet with an individual gallantly leading a forlorn hope against the batteries of fashion, and we admire and pity. We observed at a suburban railway station this summer a daring person carrying on his head a light felt helmet in the form of that used by the fire-brigade. He was endeavouring to look as if there were nothing remarkable in his appearance, but every motion betrayed the exhaustive effort he was making and his intuitive knowledge that the words of Brutus rose on each spectator’s lips,—

We comfort ourselves by deciding that such infatuation could not extend beyond two days, and that he would then have

Even ladies for riding have lately taken back into favour the straight black hat, once the customary equestrian article of dress, and it has been abundantly worn. Indeed the form, in spite of the abuse lavished on it, has its advantages. Caps touch the head all over, the round hat rests thereon with the smallest possible area of contact, and the column of air between the head and the crown, particularly in ventilated hats, is a really valuable contrivance against direct heat. Some experienced Swiss and Continental tourists have come to the conclusion that, on the whole, the ordinary hat is attended with less inconvenience than other coverings for the head.

The present modes in hats for ladies have for their basis the square crown. This is the idea, as opposed to the rounded crown which they have supplanted, and, as it appears to us, without gaining in taste or beauty of form. With that wanton determination to produce something novel—upon which, as we have already stated, the world of specialités depends—very extraordinary deductions from the original idea are being made; as, for example, untrimmed gray beaver with a wide brim, neither pretty in itself nor becoming to the wearer’s face. In trimmed hats bold innovations are introduced for ornament. The “half-pheasant” gives way to iridescent shells, tufts of prismatic spun glass, &c.

Of gloves we need not speak: we need only regret that the best of all possible gloves, the genuine kid, should be and continue so expensive an article of dress, being as they are so indispensable. Perhaps there is nothing which brings home to us the possibility of a depreciation in gold more vividly than the four shillings which we have so constantly to lay on the counter for a pair of gloves, hearing at the same time that the shopkeeper gets nothing by selling them. The agriculture of kids ought to be more attended to. The flesh of the kid is delicate eating at table—we have introduced it at our own with success—so that the raiser of stock need not lose by the animal itself, whilst he would realise a good profit by the skin. In Australia and other wool-growing countries, the example in Murray’s Grammar has long required reversal. “The fleece, and not the flock, is, or ought to be, the shepherd’s care.” The goat grazier must look primarily to the quality of the skins in his kid speculations.

We will conclude this part of our observations by remarking generally, that, in men’s dress, attention bestowed upon “the points”—the gloves, boots, and hat—creates a greater effect on the observer than the remaining and more expensive parts of his clothing. It may, consequently, be good economy to be a little extravagant in the matter of gloves. In a less degree, the same rule applies to ladies’ dress.

2em