Part 3 (1/2)
Even paupers had their distinctive badges. A Virginia statute commands that every person who shall receive relief from the parish, and be sent to the poorhouse, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of his, or her, uppermost garment, in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with the name of the parish to which he, or she, belongs, cut either in blue, red, or green cloth, at the will of the vestry or churchwardens. If any unfortunate were afflicted with pride as well as poverty and refused to wear this badge of pauperism, he was subject, by the law, to a whipping, not to exceed five lashes.
The students of William and Mary College were required to wear academical dress as soon as they had pa.s.sed ”y{e} grammar school,” and thus another costume was added to the moving tableaux on the street of Williamsburg.
In the college-books, I find it resolved by the Faculty in 1765 that Mrs.
Foster be appointed stocking-mender in the college, and that she be paid annually the sum of 12, provided she furnishes herself with lodging, diet, fire, and candles. Considering the length of stockings in those days, and a.s.suming that the nature of boys has not materially changed, I cannot help thinking the salary somewhat meagre for the duties involved.
Stockings, however, were less troublesome than s.h.i.+rts. A Mrs. Campbell sends her nephews back to school accompanied by a note explaining that she returns all their clothes except _eleven_ s.h.i.+rts, not yet washed.
If the clothes of boys were troublesome, those of girls were more so.
Madam Mason, as guardian of her children, sends in an account, wherein the support of each child is reckoned at a thousand pounds of tobacco yearly. Her son, Thomson, is charged with linen and ruffled s.h.i.+rts, and her daughter, Mary, with wooden-heeled shoes, petticoats, one hoop-petticoat, and linen. We may be sure that the needling on those petticoats and ruffled skirts would be a reproach, in its dainty fineness, to the machine-made garments of our age.
Little Dolly Payne, who afterward became Mrs. Madison and mistress of the White House, trotted off to school in her childhood (so her biographer tells us), equipped with ”a white linen mask to keep every ray of suns.h.i.+ne from the complexion, a sun-bonnet sewed on her head every morning by her careful mother, and long gloves covering the hands and arms.”
Gentlewomen, big and little, in y{e} olden time, seem to have had an inordinate fear of the suns.h.i.+ne, as is evidenced by their long gloves, their veils, and those riding-masks of cloth or velvet, which must have been most uncomfortable to keep in place, even with the aid of the little silver mouthpieces held between the teeth. But vanity enables people to endure many ills. In a correspondence between Miss Anna Bland in Virginia, and her brother Theodorick in London, the young lady writes: ”My Papa has sent for me a dress and a pair of stays. I should be glad if you will be peticular (_sic_) in the choice of them. Let the stays be very stiff bone, and much gored at the hips, and the dress any other color except yellow.”
No doubt, the consciousness of looking well, sustained the young martyr, as she gasped through the minuet, in her new dress and her stiff stays, drawn tight at home by the aid of the bed-post. The first directions to the attendant in a case of swooning, so common in our great-grandmothers'
lifetime, was to cut the stays, that the imprisoned lungs might get room to breathe once more.
Human nature is oddly inconsistent. These people, who found it incomprehensible that savages should tattoo their bodies, hang beads round their necks, and wear ornaments of snakes and rats hung by the tails through their ears and noses, decked themselves with jewelry, wore wigs and patches, and pierced their ears for barbaric rings of gold or precious stones. I protest I don't know which would have looked queerer to the other, the Indian squaw or the Colonial belle of the eighteenth century; but, from the artistic standpoint, the advantage was all with the child of nature.
In a grave business letter, written to Was.h.i.+ngton on matters of state by George Mason, the correspondent adds: ”P.S. I shall take it as a particular favor if you'll be kind enough to get me two pairs of gold snaps made at Williamsburg, for my little girls. They are small rings with a joint in them, to wear in the ears, instead of ear-rings--also a pair of toupee tongs.”
It is a pleasant glimpse we thus gain of one great statesman writing to another, and turning away from public enterprises to remember the private longings of the two little maidens at home, whose hearts are to be gladdened, though the flesh suffers, by these bits of finery.
It was not little girls alone who were willing to endure discomfort in the cause of personal appearance. Was.h.i.+ngton's false teeth still remain, a monument of his fort.i.tude. They are a set of ”uppers and unders” carved in ivory, inserted in a ponderous plate, with clamps in the roof that must have caused torture to the inexperienced mouth. The upper set is connected with the lower by a spiral spring, and the two are arranged to be held in place by the tongue. No one but the hero of Trenton and Valley Forge, could have borne such an affliction and preserved his equanimity.
Tooth-brushes are a modern luxury. In the old times, the most genteel were content to rub the teeth with a rag covered with chalk or snuff, and there was more than a suspicion of effeminacy in a man's cleaning his teeth at all. It is not strange that there was such a demand for the implanted teeth which Dr. Le Mayeur introduced toward the end of the century.
I think it may be fairly claimed that the nineteenth century has marked a great advance in personal cleanliness. To this, as much as anything, except perhaps the use of rubber clothing, we owe its increase of longevity. It is impossible to overestimate the importance to modern hygiene of water-proof substances, keeping the feet and body dry. Pattens and clogs were of service in their day and generation, but they were a clumsy contrivance as compared with the light overshoes of India-rubber.
It was not till 1772 that the first efforts were made in Baltimore to introduce the use of umbrellas. ”These, like tooth-brushes,” writes Scharf, ”were at first ridiculed as effeminate, and were only introduced by the vigorous efforts of the doctors, who recommended them chiefly as s.h.i.+elds from the sun and a defence against vertigo and prostration from heat. The first umbrellas came from India. They were made of coa.r.s.e oiled linen, stretched over sticks of rattan, and were heavy and clumsy, but they marked a wonderful step in the direction of hygienic dress. Before their introduction, ministers and doctors, who, more than any one else in the community, were called to face the winter rains, wore a cape of oiled linen, called a _roquelaire_.”
If the dress of the period before the Revolution was not hygienic, it was handsome, and eminently picturesque, as the old portraits of the last century show. The universally becoming ruffles of lace were in vogue, and women still young wore dainty caps, whose delicate lace, falling over the hair, lent softness and youth to the features. Old ladies were not unknown as now, but, at an age when the nineteenth century woman of fas.h.i.+on is still frisking about in the costume of a girl of twenty, the Colonial dame adopted the dress and manners which she conceived suited to her age and dignity. Here, for instance, is the evidence of a portrait, marked on the stretcher, ”Amy Newton, aged 45, 1770, John Durand, _pinxit_.” The lady wears an ermine-trimmed cloak draped about her shoulders, over a bodice, lace-trimmed and cut square in the neck. The lace-bordered cap falls as usual over the matron's hair. There is, to me, something rather fine and dignified in the a.s.sumption of a matronly dress as a matter of pride and choice. In one respect the Colonial dames, old and young, were gayly attired. Their feet were clad in rainbow hues of brilliant reds and greens and their dresses were generally cut to show to advantage the high-heeled slipper and clocked stocking of bright color.
Was.h.i.+ngton's order-book forms an excellent guide to the prevailing modes of the day. The orders call for rich coats and waistcoats and c.o.c.ked hats for himself; and for Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton, a salmon tabby velvet, fine flowered lawn ap.r.o.ns, white callimancos hoes, perfumed powder, puckered petticoats, and black velvet riding masks. Master Custis is fitted out with two hair bags and a whole piece of ribbon, while the servants are provided with fifty ells of _osnabergs_ (a coa.r.s.e cloth made of flax and tow manufactured at Osnaberg, in Germany, and much in vogue for servants'
wear).
The goods of the time, for high and low, were made to outlast more than one generation. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was betrothed in his youth to a beautiful young lady. The wedding-dress was ordered from London, but before its arrival the bride elect had died, and the dress was laid aside.
A century later, it appeared at a fancy dress ball, its fabric untarnished, and untouched by time. It was worth while to pay high prices for such stuffs. In many a household to-day is cherished some bit of the brocades, sarcenets, shalloons, and tammies worn by our great-grandmothers and their mothers.
In the Maryland _Gazette_, somewhere in the middle of the last century, Catherine Rathel, milliner, from London, advertises a tempting a.s.sortment of white satin, India and other chintzes, calico, gingham, cloaks, cardinal's hats, flowered gauze ap.r.o.ns, bonnets, caps, egrettes, fillets, breast-flowers, fas.h.i.+onable ribbands, b.u.t.tons and loops, silk hose, superfine white India stockings, box and ivory combs.
The firm of Rivington & Brown present an equally attractive display for gentlemen: ”An importation of hats, gold and silver-laced, and _c.o.c.ked by his Majesty's Hatter_. London-made pumps and boot-garters, silk or buff sword-belts and gorgets, newest style paste shoe-buckles, gold seals, snuff-boxes of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, leather, or papier-mache.”
Whatever luxuries or elegances of the toilet a man of fas.h.i.+on might possess, his snuff-box was his chief pride. This was the weapon with which he fought the bloodless battles of the drawing-room and, armed with it, he felt himself a Cavalier indeed. The nice study of the times and seasons when it should be tapped, when played with, when offered or accepted, and when haughtily thrust into the pocket, marked the gentleman of the old school. But one use of the snuff-box, I am certain, was never devised by either Steele or Lilie, but was left for the brain or nerves of a Colonial dame to invent. A widow, left alone and unprotected, occupied that ground-floor room generally designated in the Colonial house as the parlor-chamber. Fearing firearms more than robbers, she armed herself with a large snuff-box, which, in case of any suspicious noise in the night, she was wont to click loudly, in imitation of the c.o.c.king of a gun. The effect on the hypothetical robbers was instantaneous, and they never disturbed her twice in the same night.
Colonial dress, as we advance toward the time of the Revolution, grows simpler. Wigs fall by their own weight, and men begin to wear their own hair, drawn back and fastened in dignified fas.h.i.+on with a bow of broad ribbon, generally black. Except for ruffled s.h.i.+rts and deep cuffs, the costume of society approaches the sobriety of to-day, and the lack of money and threat of war subdue the dress even of the women. The military alone still keep up the pomp and circ.u.mstance of costume worn by all men in the Stuart era. In 1774, the Fairfax Independent Company of Volunteers meet in Virginia, and resolve to gather at stated seasons for practice of military exercise and discipline. It is further resolved that their dress shall be a uniform of blue turned up with buff, with plain yellow metal b.u.t.tons, buff waistcoat, and breeches, and white stockings; and furnished with good flint-lock and bayonet, sling cartouch box and tomahawk.