Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/11

 PORTRAITURE OF WILLIAM PENN. could not have varied from the standard of his day; nor would it have been in keeping with his known character to adopt any peculiarity (of shape or color) in dress to attract attention. His practice, and that of Friends of his day, was in conformity with the rules of their Society, at that time sufficiently evidenced from an original manuscript volume of " Advices by the Yearly Meeting of in wearing superfltiity of apparel; " and again, in 1694: " We tenderly advise all, both old and youpg, to keep out of the world's corrupt language, manners, and vain, needless customs and fashions in apparel;" while similar cautions are reiterated " not to launch into the vain customs and fashions too prevalent among the professors of Christianity." Down to the very middle of the last



Friends" in my possession. Under date of 1695 is this entry: "Advised, that all that profess the truth keep to plainness in apparel, as becomes the truth, and that none wear long-lapped sleeves, or coats gathered at the sides, or superfluous buttons, or broad ribbons about their hats, or long curled periwigs."

This volume of advices begins in 1681. In 1682, the first reference to dress, Friends are advised " to take heed that they be not found century no directions are to be found as to drab colors or any especial cut of coat. It was not till about 1760 that the then existing style seems to have become crystallized into a uniform for those professing Friends' principles, and probably at the same time that the hat-on-head theory was made an essential indication of their adherence to " the Truth."

These errors, as has been intimated, are