SHINGLES FROM AN OLD ROOF.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 193, 23 September 1864, Page 3

SHINGLES FROM AN OLD ROOF.

BY A FREE AN'D EASY SIIINGLEE. SO.Mii YERY BAD HABITS. I never hear a party of crapulous revellers assorting with uproarious dissonance that Britons never shall be slaves, without laughing in mv sleeve at that very pretty hut exceedingly popular delusion. Are not a very large number of Britons (ho slaves of hideous vices, absurd customs and ridiculous habits. ’Tis true they are free slaves ; the yoke is self-imposed ; hut (he bondage is none the less gnllingon lhat.aceouut, ami the hope of deliverance is positively smaller. If, for instance, we were compelled by law to smoke dirty black pipes, and forced to swallow unlimited nobhlers at the point of ( bo bayonet, what an awful outcry there would bo. I speak with all due loyally ; but I scarcely think the throne itself would bo safe, under such circumstances. Not to take too expansive a view of the quea-

tion, what would be the effect of a modern sumptuary edict. Would it be borne for a day that wo should be compelled to clothe the outward man in such outrageous vestments as fashion despotically prescribes? Yet we submit to her tyrannical decrees, not without murmuring certainly ; but. in our utmost impatience we “ roar as gently ns any nightingale.” Our ladies are governed in the rtlost important article of their faith by the French Court; and we, of the inferior sex, grovel helplessly at the feet of custom. Place avr dames ! and let me briefly and with becoming modesty glance at female costume. 1 know T shall be fold that to vent tirades against crinoline is to revive a hackneyed subject. Punch and the press have satirised and illustrated its absurdities till the bone is marrowless. But whilst those dreadlul birdcages—those vile woman-traps are still in vogue, and every day adds to the lists ol burnt martyrs, no apologv is necessary for a perpetuation of the war Why do our fair sisters persist in disguising their lovely figures beneath such frightful enormities? To’the lame and deformed they must be a godsend, and for concealing splay feet and ugly ancles I know of nothing equal to them. But therein consists some of their most objectionable offences. Thank heaven for the prevailing mnddiness of our wavs, which affords such an excellent excuse for lifting the veil from (he pedal beauties which might otherwise be hidden from our gaze. Some time ago a capital innovation was made in feminine head-gear, and the ugly bonnet wisely discarded for very graceful, pretty, and bewitching leafs. But alas, mid alas! the old abomination seems to he coming in again. I have lately seen some ol the prettiest heads in Otago shrouded in dismal bonnets, the design tor which must surely have been borrowed from a coal-scuttle. And I assure them they have only gained a loss by the exchange. A woman’s hair is her glory;’ but what if the glory is iguominiously thrust into the fug-end of a problematical extinguisher? So completely is the glory hidden that it would be a fair retaliation to afiix the name of 1 eh a bod upon the distasteful covering. Really it would seem .as if toe spirit oi taste had departed Irom the uraniums of this most prosaic and matter-of-fact generation. Compare modern costume with that of any preceding era, save the days of our grandmothers, and the enntra.-t docs not tell in our favor. I Lilly expect that the next, revolution of Fashion’s teetotum will bring back the short waists low bodies, and no-crinoline of the Regency. Hideous enough in all conscience, but scarcely more outre, and vastly more natural (hail (he present coal-box and pyramid style, which docs not leave a single beauty free, " To sink or swell as nature pleases.” Pardon the Old Shingler, ladies, if be ventures ‘•To hint a fault and hesitate dislike,” when 'contemplating the wilful vagaries of the most graceful portion ot humanity. Let us shift the scene and bring the swaggering biped—Man —upon the stage. Why *in the name of all that is horrible is it rendered compulsory for him to endue his person in a detestable garment called a “dress-coat,” before he eau present himself in “society a thing which is neither useful nor ornamental, hut the reverse of both. A wretched counterfeit which is not warm and certainly is anything but comfortable. An abortion which is not properly a coat at all, and is .'spoilt for a jacket by reason of its dorsal continual ions. A misconceived nondescript which causes a thin man to appear more attenuated, and increases the rotundity of a stout man. Fancy the Apollo Belvedere in a tail-coat! Fancy Hercules in such a garment! You cannot. The utmost sfretell of imagination fails to realise such an outrage. Sculptors repudiate the monstrosity, painters reject it as alien to art. When will common sense scout lids very bad habit and Fashion abolish it. The British private has been released from the indignity of wearing it, Policeman X has been newly clothed by some one in his right mind. But it still holds its own in the ball-room and at the dinner table, in the drawing-room and the tailor's pattern-book. Not a living soul willingly wears it; more, there is not one but openly scoffs at and derides it, yet there it is—a palpable blunder and a nuisance, which nobody lias (he sense and the pluck to resist. There is the white neckcloth too. 'Wherefore must I envelope my nock in a muslin bandage, preparatory to entering orthodox soeiery ? Anything more priggish it is impossible to conceive. Beau Brummell indicated a heap of disordered cravats as his failures. The white neckcloth is ever and always a failure to nineteen men out of twenty. To some of it gives the appearance of very unclerieal impostors. To others it lends the seedy graces of a flunkey, or the unenviable style of a family butler. 1 protest, when 1 see an assemblage of whitc-elinekered laymen—at dinner Jet us say —I am half inclined to cry out, “Bless me all the gentlemen are abroad, and the servant’s hall is going to have a feed.” ’Tis worse in a ball-room. How often have I vainly endeavored to smother my laughter on beholding a modern swell—all black and while, like a chimneysweep on .May-day, whirling round, with his coattails living like signals of distress, at an angle of •15 degrees, in company with something that looks like a tarlelan tombola. Look at the hat again. We in Otago are not generally given to exaggerated black-botllecastors. Indeed, until the irruption of the gold miners and their camp-followers, there were only two hats in the Province, and both of these were the property of one man. It is said, 1 know not how truly, that he actually made them useful, and if so the fact reflects great credit on his ingennitv. When anyone wished to see him on unp’.i as mt business, lie would leave one of these hats on his (able, so as to induce the belief that lie was somewhere about the house, and triumphantly walk out of reach with the other on his head!* More power to him for that same The man who niiis ids faith on the presence of a head because he sees a hat, deserves to be circumvented. Latterly there have been signs of the introduction of the hat amongst our hitherto well-behaved population. Certain evil-disposed persons have audaciously walked about the streets in the most shameless manner with these graceless fabrics on

their upper extremities. This is an evil which must ’) be put down.' It the delinquents have no regard for their own comfort, common decency •should deter them irotn unnecessarily converting themselves into guys. The coat nuisance and the white'neckcloth disfigurement are decreed by cus* tom, and can only be repressed by common consent. But as yet custom does not in Otego require to wear those lumbering, headtorturing inconveniences called huts. There is therefore no excuse whatever for parading such preposterous excrescences. B. J. and E, take heed and repent, and offend our eyesight no more. Ah, me! when shall wo pel rid of these very bad iinbits ? IXever, I fear till some great prince or grandee sets the example. There is not a brave Curtins amongst us who dares to leap into the yawning gulp!) of fashion for the benefit of his fellow citizens. Time was w lien pigtails were nil the rage, and it. is on record that military etiquette screwed the British soldier’s tail so tight that ho could not shut his eyes nor even so much as perpetrate a wink. Well, “the first gentleman of Europe —heaven save the murk —concealed his fail under his hat one day, by Way of a joke, and bis obsfquious courtiers instantly divested their frivolous pates of tile customary appendages. Then tlie ‘‘ first gentleman, let down his pigtail, and flouted it in their chagrined faces. But ho could not replace the greasy ornaments so hastily shorn from the polls of his parasites, and eventually had to dock liis own. Thus perished the pigtails of the British aristocracy. Shopocracv democracy,.and every other Sillyocraev, followed the example oI the Court, to the great advantage ol coat-collars, and the grievous distress of hairdressers. I love to relate this great historical fact, for, so far as 1 have yet been able to discover, it is about, the only meritorious action ever performed by the “first gentleman, Ac.” And even that, yon see, was quite unintentional. Now, if his Royal 11 ighuess I he Prince of Wales would, in thin one matter ontif , iollow tlie example ot his illustrious predecessor, and make a point of appearing at his next levee in a sensible frock-coat, and decent black tie, and would discard the round hat lor any other head covering—barring the “ Albert,” —1 have no doubt our bad habits would at once he thrown aside. And if his prettv Princess would set an equally commendable example in the matter ot crinoline and scuffle-bonnets, our women would abolish their present masquerading apparel, and once more shine forth in all the easy elegance, of which bountiful Dame Nature certainly intended them to be tlie living tapes. May the Old Shiugler live to see it! Goodness Gracious! What a terrible catastrophe is impending! 1 had written so far, and read my MS over to my lovely Martha, who is a very fair critic, when that excellent woman placed the following w.orceuu muter my nose : “Xew I Asnioxsix Paiiis.—A Paris correspondent w rites :—1 must fur an instant allude to a new fashion, grounding my statement on a picture in tin’ Journal Jllmire. 1 hinted some weeks ago that ladies were about to wear ‘tail coats.’ The lime has arrived for tiiut innovation, and only last night 1 beheld with astonishment, not uninixed with terror, many ladies in silk and satin dresscoals. Coals, waistcoats, shirts, collars, and cravats, they have assumed them all in turns. What remains for them to wear? And Echo answers —well, never mind what Echo answers, but a Highland clneilain’s wife would find it ‘ill’ to assume. But who am 1 that I should Interfere with ladies toilettes. - ' Only Ido hope they won’t get into the habit of standing with their backs to the fireplace, and their hands in their pockets.” I believe f nearly fainted after reading the above. Surely we have fallen on evil davs.