THE LOST PIGTAIL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1003, 19 December 1910, Page 8

THE LOST PIGTAIL.

4 A CORONACH, j . • TRIUMPHANT MONOTONY. • :/ (By J.Q.X.) . . : Doubtless the Cliineso Emperor, who baS ordered his officers and ministers to tut-off their queues while abroad, and the Imperial Assembly which has memorialised tho Throno io make the order apply also at home, and the 11,000 Hong-Kong Chinese who discarded, their pigtails in three days, and Mr. Hwang, . ivho'. has been advising his countrymen in New Zealand to follow the example, •have been doing what is quito proper and> sensible. And yet I cannot help ; feeling rather/sorry to seo that occipital ornament, go out of. existence. I It was peculiar and picturesque. It was a badgo of nationality. It was somehow: symbolical of the' Chinese character; and civilisation; It was one of .-tho'se piece's of secular ritual—like silk ; ihats, judges' wigs,. and the maco in Parliament— which I smile at, and i woukl not bo at any great sacrifice to maintain, and yet would not willingly . let die..

They are';, in fact, dying all around lis.." The outward signs of class, creed, .'trade and race are gradually being discarded. ■ I have witnessed tlio disap-' pearahco of the Wessex peasant smock, and the old-time garb of the Quakers. I have lived to see ministers of religion dressed like other men. I liave watched a' 1 Chief Justice, -wigless,. delivering judgment,'and heard bishop's murmur against their gaiters. Tennyson was the last poet to look the part. Browning was mistaken for a grocer.,, Every■boay'is becoming like everybody else.. ■ Observation, with extensive view,

>; Survey mankind from China •' to Peru," if she, really cares to keep up the ■habit, but tho survey. will not bo so well' worth' while when all the races of men look as if they might have Iwught their clothes and had their hair 'cut on Lambton Quay. . For years I . iave witnessed with dull distaste this .rising tide of' sameness, but so long as ■the pigtail; was.still ' unsubmerged, the outlook was-not wholly comfortless. Tho black plait coiled round the head . of a- Molesworth Street greengrocer, its thin end just showing below his cap, reminded me, that in his native land the jueuc that dangled from millions of shaven; polls was still an , honourable, appendage. It seemed to wave peimoritviso'above the world-deluge of sartorial and tonsorial monotony. I rejoiced that . . China kept that flag flying. It is . lowered now—heaped, ceremoniously, I imagine, in a-thousand city' squares, to perish', in' too-odorous ' bonfires, or, mayhap (for tho racial: eye to>. profit is keen); travelling in'pressed ; bales to where'it shall swell the modish coiffures of the" Occident. Edwin, sonnetising the -raven coils of Angelina's hair, may nover.' guess that most of it grew in tho province of Hupeh. With the death of the pigtail, tho triumph of tho timid Spirit of Mutual Imitation is complete. . But: I will not sorrow as.one without hope..' For the. pifetail there may be no, resurrection, but the prime cause of' pigtails,\ militarymoustaches, smock frocks; lawyers' ' wigs, ecclesiastical gaiters, kimonos, broad-brimmed hats,tattooing, white ties, claw-hammer coats, gold sticks in waiting, Lord Mayors, shows, and all such things, is . operative still. They are emanations of the human mind. They come of tho ■hunger,, ,for expression. Wo all want to short' each, other how we feel, arid what,.sort of: persons wo'wish to bo thought. We. dress differently because ■we aire different, and we dress alike ■■because we are alike. •

Democracy, education, newspapers, tl'.c penny post, and cheap travel have made the last three or four generations • a period of the wearing away of. dis- . itinctions. Knowledge knows no frontiers, "capital has long been international, and labour is becoming so. The ; "same cause tlyit moves Mr. Carnegie jto propound, fresh arbitration schemes is making all the nations of the earth , adopt the. same'style of '-haircutting. l . Mrs., Archibald Little -.concludes' her' "Diary in a, Chinese Farm" with the reminder that the: Chinese are "real men aid women-with , simple wants and Irishes not after all so unlike our own." Something like that is the outstanding imoral of modern travels ?jid discoveries. We hear, no .more of • ;;"Anthropopliagi'and men'whoso heads 1 Do.'grow beneath their shoulders/' Tho. same prosaic truthfulness thab ■ inas sent those quaint pieces of mental jfurniture to tho destructor is persistent- ; fly rubbing-out the old strong lines be-* IJween race and race, class and class. ,The Wessex peasant can hardly be said rtp survive outside the magic circle of .We, art of Thomas Hardy. The Irish , peasant is being transformed by the Congested Districts , Board. and the iand; Purchase Acts , into something • jnoro prosperous but less pious and picturesque. The Russian pcasaut, whom Tolstoy revered, and the Russian aris(tofcrat, over whom he grieved, will bo . ivery. much alike . after a while. The -/ [typical modern society is that in which Irishman, Englishman, German, Italian, / and Russian are' being rapidly transformed into fellow. citizens in competition for.,the American dollar. The '"local colour" for which novelists''are •eSploring every nook and cranny of .[human society is fading away. Their isuccessors will-have-to choose between' jhistorical scenes and mero. psychologi,cal" analysis. . _ My. hope ,is that before we have finlished becoming alike we shall.begin to i l)e different again; When the contrast ■; between Sing Wung Iveo and Davie M'Pibroch is merely superficial, that •which marks off John Smith from Wil- . iiam Robinson may bo profound, fundamental, pjid unalterable.. We shall no - longer bo educated in herds, governed in . droves,, and dressed in uniforms, but each individual wilKbo free enough to express: in his daily actions and aspects whatever is decent and social in ; 'his composition. Tho surface of life 'will be. again, and .more richly than ever, -. diverse, vivid, sensational.. I'.hardly thought, -when I hitched my . wagon' to-: a . pigtail, • that I should bo drawn so , fajv . T must let go, lest it whisk 'me incontinently* into impossible Utopias.