LONDON SOCIAL LIFE IN 1816.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4497, 4 June 1883, Page 2

LONDON SOCIAL LIFE IN 1816.

At Ranelagh and Yauxhall, in 1816, fine ladies rubbed shoulders with actresses, magistrates forgathered with jockeys and sharpers, and -the guardians of pablie order had ""mqre to fear from young bloods and sprigs of nobility than from professional thieves and blacklegs. Costumes were grotesque and irrational, but were worn with a dash and effrontery that made them becoming. There were cocked hats and steeple crowned bats ; yards of neckcloth and mountains of coat collar; green coats and blue coats, claret coats and white coats; four or five great coats one on top of another; small-clothes and tight breeches corduroys, hessians, and pumps. Beards were shaved smooth, and hair grew long. Young ladies wore drab Josephs and flatcrowned beaver bonnets, and rode to balls on pillions, with their ball-clothes in band-boxes. Coral necklaces were the fashion, and silvery twilled silks and lace tuckers ; and these fine things were laid up in lavender and rose-leaves. Hair was cropped short behind, and dressed with flat curls in front. Mob-caps and top - knotted caps, skull-caps and fronts turbans and muslin kerchiefs, and puffed yellow satins—these things were a trifle antiquated, and belonged to the elder generation. Stage coaches and post-horses occupied the place of railways and telegraphs, and driving was a fine art, and five hours from Brighton to London was monstrous slow going. Stage-coachmen were among the potentates of the day; they could do but one thing, but that they did perfectly; they were clannish among themselves, bullies to the poor, comrades to gentlemen, lick-spittles to lords, and the high priests of horseflesh, which was at that epoch one of the most influential religions in* England; pugilism being another, caste a third, and drunkenness the fourth. A snuff-box was still the universal wear, blue-pill was the specific for liver complaint, shopping was done in Cheape and Cornhill; fashionable blood lodged in High Holborn, lounged at Bennet's and the Piazza Coffee-house, made calls at Grosvenor Square, looked in at a dog fight, or to see Kemble, Siddons, or Eaen in the evening and finished the night over rack-punch and cards at the club. Literature was not much in vogue, though most people had read " Birron " and the " Monk,'' and many were familiar with the " Dialogue's of Devils," the "Arabian Nights," and "Zadkiel's Prophetic Almanac ;" while the " Dairyman's Daughter " either had been.written er soon was to be. Royalty aud; nobility showed them* selves much more freeiy than they do now. George the Third was still King of England ; and George, his son, was still th« first gentleman and foremost blackguard of Europe ; and everything, in short, was outwardly very different from what it is at the present day. ,