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76g , The Saturday Analyst and Leader. [...
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ARMY MISRULE.* A COMMON Soldier, several...
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_ ? Army AlTtnth iclt ' h //«/'/'«»c* Th...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Fast Hats. It In True That Vhabit Ne Fai...
depression of the intellectual functions , —for old Bex Joxson s adao-e suits most of us , " Out of clothes out of countenance , out ot countenance out of wit . " It has often been made to appear that the studied garb of great men is by no mean * without significance . We have little doubt that it operates as well as indicates—that it is often not merely a si » -n , but a cause . But of clothes , the moral is far » reater than the intellectual expression ; forcing- upflna man , as it were ah extra , and that very intensively , the qualities , and penetrating him with the character of those whose costume he is wearing for the time , whether that costume be purely professional ^ or not . A whole s-enus seems to press upon a man , with all its traits , with the combined weight of all its individuals , to stamp and assimilate
him-to force & £ ** the £ „* is , to be . " Worthy of the cloth " wliich he has adopted . Who will . deny that some of our very best soldiers have owed the first budding- of their bravery very considerably , to their uniform-that the actor acts with more spirit whence is dressed for his part , than at a miserable repetition without costume i > Take an individual , conscientious in his dealings , and sober in his fashions ' : invest that individual with a . green cut-away coat rather the worse for wear , insist upon his adopting- an indifferently shabby white hat . planted rather jauntily askew ; this is enough ; we leave the lower part of the integument to the fancy and the mercy of the T ..-. dor ¦ does the latter imagine for one moment thai , the moral in would not undergo gradual
dualities ' of the individual question a deterioration ? On the other hand . , the scamp or the swell , to whom the " -reeil cut-away originally belonged , but who has exchan g ed it " o ur sober ' friend ' s suit of black , with the short pantaloons , the shoes , the grey worsted stockings and hat , the hinder rim of which gently reposes on the coat collar , this transmuted scamp , we say , after a month ' s uncomfortable experience ot the new costume , feels himself gradually oppressed by a compulsory < -ravitv feels less and less enjoyment in his penny cigar , begins to think ' slaho- at first questionable , then decidedly but of character , ind if "till irreclaimable to the paths of virtue , at any rate lays down the blackguard and bully , and does homage by taking up the hypocrite Our clothes , indeed , seem to bind us , in honour , to certain conformity of action ; a man does not like to be mjidelis err / a
vestem suam ; perhaps he feels some delicacy about disappointing the expectations of his fellow creatures , formed , upon the promise of his outer man We could imaa-ine few people both more inconsistent and more unhappy , more shaken and wavering- in their morale , than a being compelled every week to draw blindly a fresh suit from i secondhand clothes ^ warehouse . His case would be dittereiit from that of the public performer , who derives momentary aid indeed from the dress which he adopts , but does not retain it long- enough at a time to admit of its deeply influencing- his ~ character . Let-us draw these general rays of luminous remark to a focus , and briny it briefly to bear upon the subject of hats . No part of been much denounced bthe
the Englishman ' s costume has so y Eno-lishman himself , none pronounced to be so ugly , irrational , and in all respects inconvenient , as the ordinary average English hat . Yet must there exist in this hat some secret propriety some special fitness for , in spite of obloquy , no portion of the Englishman s costume has undergone so few metamorphoses ; we except individual extravagances in this article , the infallible evidence of conceit , and infallibly aggravating it : an abnormal hat made to order is the corollary of Vanity ' s " consummate flower , and the seeds ' lie at its base . ' to this rule we never knew an exception . " There has been , it must be admitted , a great innovation in the case of the wide-awake , in all its ugly varieties ; but never have iCi : » i . m ' Ai , nvnnnt when . snortinc travelling , or gardening , and lishmen t when sporting , travelling , or gardonnig and
, Eng , excep many scarcely even then , taken to it kindly . It is secretly iclt not to be a o-entleman ' s costume ; the most aristocratic general bearing , the most cold-drawn expression of face , the most paint do vice punctiliousness in the rest of the attire , will not , at any rate in the streets of a town , suffice to support the wide-awake s inherent blackguardism and make it tolerable ; further , it may be asserted , that the wideawake , when persisted in , together with all those loose arbitrary , ncirlir / e habiliments which so often accompany it , indicate , both as precedent and consequent , an irregular impulsive will and a slackened self-discipline . The only person that can be executed from those remarks is the reader . # ' Let us contract our focus still more to n point , and throw it , at once Ummmating and destroying , on the ordinary tcmulo hat of the iv our finalanu real object . We have seen the wide Leghorn hut , its front Happing upwards in the brooao , and discovering the sunburnt face oV tho Florentine Contadinn and wo have . wen the Cantonsand have
« raver broad-brims of some of tho Swiss , thought them highly graceful . Under some varieties of the hat the English female face too , looks charming ; but tho ordinary typo , tho lmt rather small turned up somewhat sharply at tho sides , so as to form a bed for i nortion of the feuther generally worn with it , is intolerable , wul most thoroughly unbecoming to tho girls of England ; indeod , it . changes their whole aspect and expression . Tho Frenchwoman has sonse and tnnto ; her whole air is coquottish ; as a general rule sho knows that her countenance would not bear the hat , and who consequently nvoids it Tho natural English girl ' s face is sweet and modest ; with this she is not sutWiod—she aims at Fronch coqucttishness , . iiirl instead of looking coquottish , sho looks braxon : wo arc curtain ' at Z ox » rc » lion U "yt ' merely in part produced by the hat , but losiirnMllv uiioimnodotod to- -it .. Tim girls -of ¦ England wo no on -v the Home ia nuv country towns ; wo speak , perhaps , rather ¦" fli li Idle than of tho ari * to , vutic classes Wo havu n tolerably 01 iiu 'uuiv declare that w ion thefle l » it « tiro worn it is K tT i i uh » 1 in thc largo Hoeond and third ruto towns ot 1 Wlni I oci . U ' , espocinlly in the evening , m very many eases , woti ¦ ii voung Woman in , or is not , precisely what sho ought to be .
If she looks impudent , nonchalante , and devil-me-care , the -inference is evident : observe , the walk is greatly influenced by the style of hat ; to avoid this , however , there is often _ the same selfconfidence and independence , tempered , not with levity , but with a haughty repulsiveness , which , is still more disagreeable , though , perhaps ., more reputable . A great deal is said now-a-days about the fastness of our young females;—a hat of the above description is the fastness of all kinds of fastnesses and self-wills . It is our opinion that the female fastness aud independence of which our . writers and
parents complain so much came in with these hats , partly causing the hats , and partly caused by them . Let them be abolished . A regular broad-brim shelters the cheeks , and softens , with a nice arrangement of the hair , the corner of the eye . The depressed brims , again , are far better than the upraised ones ; they have , it is true , a somewhat dowdy and melancholic air , but a graceful figure and a lady-like , lively / and natural bearing overcomes those disadvantages , and such hats are a real , not an affected , shelter from the sun , or from too ardent masculine glances : the true English maiden ' s cheeks will not bear bareness .
76g , The Saturday Analyst And Leader. [...
76 g , The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Sept . 1 , 1860 _
Army Misrule.* A Common Soldier, Several...
ARMY MISRULE . * A COMMON Soldier , several of whose poems have appeared in Once a Week , has indited a letterto Lord Pulnierston , somewhat disfigured by misprisions of wit , which contains some home-trutlis in regard to " the government and discipline of the army , that merit public attention . He tells us that he has served as a private in the 1 st corps in the profession , and is sufficiently familiar with its general management . He knows more about it than blue-books can teach ,. and-asserts that the wonder is , not that the British soldier " is what he is , but rather that he stops short of being what the vital exigencies of Red Tape would drive him to become . " On leaving , he bade farewell to a non-commissioned officer , who urged , him . in heaven ' s name , to write if he had . the power , and let his country know how degraded the members of the service had become , and ho ' w much is wasted in preventing them from being better . " I have sat here , " said the old subaltern , " hour after hour , wondering how the best part of a man can be > o gradually undermined , and yet the carcass still remain what it is " , presenting- a total apparently so stable and so sound . " Such ' is , ' indeed ,. the general disaffection in the barracks , that the writer thinks the matter is becoming serious . At . any rate , as we have said , his statement deserves consideration . It shall have it . . - " There is no use , " he continues , " in hoodwinking the fact . . . The conversation of the barrack-rooms , without an exception , i . s neither complimentary to Government in 4 he concrete , nor suggestive of a continuity of forbearance ; but is rerolulioniirtj in . tinextreme . " If steps ' be hot taken in time , he argues that "the soldier will undertake for himself the reorganization of the infamous and degrading system by which he is ruled . A sense of power , and a tendency to try the efficacy of-exerting it , prevails largely in tile ranks . " This is a fearful warning . Let us take heed , and not neglect it . The soldier , we are told , fosters n sense of wrong , which must ultimately grow to formidable proportions , as the truth begins to teach him that the recruiting-sergeant is , after all , but part of a system having its root in another quarter , mid fostered by an oligarchy whom ignorance believes it has a prescriptive right t <> A ate , and certainly has tho strength to overthrow at the expense of a nation's welfare . Not only is the expediency of the lash questioned , but that of punishment in the abstract . Tho ovil of desertion needs cure . What is the only available remedy ? Our letter-writer thus answers . " Expend the sums of money now lost to the country ( as bribes for the capture of deserters ) , in rendering- the home . of the soldier more liko that which he lias . left to become ( as ho thinks ) your voluntary guardian , but whose state the condemned convict would scarcely accept in exchange for his own , " , He tolls a sad story of a soldier who had descried , was captured , punished ( not with tho lash ) , and released from prison . In a few days , ho . deliberately shot himself . Our Common Soldier i . s no advocate for tho abolition ol promotion by purchase . This is no remedy for tho specilic evils complained ' of . Thy men would rather bo commanded by gentlemen ; - —but they would have those gentlemen show a kindliness and sympathy of demeanour . For want of this , there is many a man whose only wish is to bo placed in such a position that ho may safely shoot his officer . " The officer , upon whose success , in u certain cause , whole centuries of civilization depend , for ought wo know , may bo one marked out for death by tho hand of tho soldier at his sulo . M «; Tho state of the case appears , from the tividonce given , not to htivo boon exaggerated . Tho writer speaks of one who cherished such an insane desire , as bearing a stainless diameter on tho books ol'tho corps ; and asks , emphatically , "Do you suppose , my Lord , that , in time of war , no officers , or but few , fall by the hands ol subordinates P T should bo ahul to boliovo so too , but the . premisus from which wo liave sturtod lead to a far different conclusion . Such a statement is well calculated " to startle nnd way-lay tlio most inapprohonsivo . of the public , . , Tho writer proposes that tho prosont system of aaltttttnon oil duty should . be . superseded . If tho ' men were not compelled to salute , tho discovery would soon bo mndu of tho „ " officer who possesses tho Itniick of changing a loyal soldier into a malcontent , by tho uttoraacoof u single sontonco . -Hero is u simple means o letting in tho light of truth . Ar 6 the army authorities uiWud ot tho test P If not , let them try it . '
_ ? Army Alttnth Iclt ' H //«/'/'«»C* Th...
_ ? Army AlTtnth iclt ' h //«/ ' /'«» c * ThonffhU , and v ( 'i ,-r 1 ' ovms . My n Common tioUllur . Snumlci-b , utltiv , mid Co ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 1, 1860, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01091860/page/6/
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