Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/785

Rh or short cotton drawers, with the straw hat, and square mantle, were widely encroached upon, with a disregard for decency that was particularly striking and objectionable in the large towns, and evoked several decrees with the usual ineffectiveness. Revilla Gigedo took a more energetic course in compelling the numerous workmen in public factories and departments to adopt a better dress, consisting of shirt, vest, and chupa, a linen coat similar in form to our dress coat; also trousers, shoes, and socks. None might join in public meetings or processions covered in mantle or serape.

Those with means, whether white or of mixed blood, were naturally impelled by the common class vanity to distinguish themselves from the poor by an extravagant display which again provoked frequent repressive edicts, as instanced already in the time of the first audiencias. Whatever effect these may have had for the time, the pent-up love for finery burst forth with strength renewed by its momentary check, and Gage describes how those standing examples of humility, the religious and curates, sallied forth in state to reprove sinners. He saw a "Frier of the Cloister riding with his lackey-boy by his side, upon a good gelding, with his long habit tucked up to his girdle, making shew of a fine silk Orange-colour Stockin upon his legs, and a neat Cordovan shoe upon his foot, with a fine Holland pair of Drawers, with a lace three inches broad at knee." He speaks of other friars "under whose broad sleeves we could perceive their Doublets quilted with silk, and at their wrists the Laces of their Holland shirts."

The characteristic dress of the people can be recognized in that of the different provinces of Spain, as