Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

OLD CLOTHES.

HEN the hawker working the suburban district comes by with his Abarrow blooming with flowers, and

petitioning for old clothes, old hats, and old boots, &c., in exchange for them, the bargain seems so one-sided that most people are only too glad to begin the barter. We all get so sick of frowsy old clothes, that it seems almost a mercy to get rid of them at any price; but to be able to translate them into geraniums and fuchsias, &c., to exchange musty, fusty gabardines for fresh odours and rainbow hues, is more than anybody ever expected to do.

The coster who initiated this subtle method of weeding our wardrobes must have had a special insight into female character, ever ready to exchange the solid and useful for the brightly decorative-at all events, this almost poetical method of filling old clothes' bags deserves to be mentioned as one of the most abundant means of building up a trade which has now assumed enormous proportions. The great dealers into whose hands our cast-off skins ultimately fall have arrived at the dignified position of merchants. The value of their exports to foreign countries makes no inconsiderable item in our annual trade returns. The streams of old clothes that hour by hour are seductively drained, either by floral exchange, attractive advertisement, or by the downright pestering of "Old Ikeys," culminate in the great old clothes' mart in Houndsditch, where Hebrews most do congregate.

This inodorous spot has been so often described in popular works, that people are now pretty familiar with it, by name at least. But having described the fierce contest which ensues over the mounds of old clothes therein daily deposited, our social statisticians seem to have had enough of them, and have proceeded no further. But the true interest in the story of old clothes begins just at the point where they leave off. To the question of what becomes of them, we might answer that the greater part of them are now about to set out upon their travels, to enter new circles of society, and to see life, both savage and civilized, under a thousand new phases.

Those that are intended to remain in this country have to be tutored and transformed. The "clobberer," the "reviver," and the "translator" lay hands upon them. The duty of the "clobberer" is to patch, to sew up, and to

restore as far as possible the garments to their pristine appearance; black cloth garments pass into the hands of the "revivers," who rejuvenate seedy black coats, and, for the moment, make them look as good as new. The "translator's" duty is of a higher order; his office is to transform one garment into another-the skirts of a cast-off coat, being the least worn part of the garment, make capital waistcoats and tunics for children, &c. Hats are revived in a still more wonderful manner; they are cut down to take out the grease marks, relined, and appear in the shops like new ones. The streets surrounding the old clothes' market are full of shops where these "clobbered" and "revived" goods are exposed for sale; and really a stranger to the trade would not know but that they were new goods. There is a department of the market itself also dedicated to old clothes, male and female, "clobbered" and "revived." It is a touching sight to see the class of persons who frequent the men's market, and turn over the seedy black garments that are doing their best to put on a good appearance-the toilworn clerks, who for some social reason are expected to apparel themselves in black, and the equally careworn members of the clerical profession, chiefly curates, whose meagre stipends do not permit of the extravagance of new suits of clothes.

The ladies' market is a vast wardrobe of silk dresses, but if we are to believe the saleswoman, the matrons of England are more thrifty than we gave them credit for. "Servants come here to purchase, sir! No, indeed, sir, ladies worth hundreds of pounds," was the reply we got to our inquiries as to the class of purchasers. Black cloth clothes that are too far gone to be "clobbered" and "revived," are always sent abroad to be cut up to make caps. France takes the best of these old clothes for this purpose. The linings are stripped out, and in this condition they are admitted duty free as old rags. Russia and Poland, where caps seem to be universally worn by the working population, are content with still more threadbare garments to be cut up for this purpose.

The great bulk of our cast-off clothes of all kinds, however, find their way to two markets -Ireland and Holland. The old clothes' bags of the collectors may, in fact, be said to be

emptied out in the land of Erin, as far as the ordinary order of clothes go, while to Holland only special articles of apparel are exported. Singularly enough, the destination of the red tunics of the whole British infantry is the chest of the sturdy Dutchman. There seems to be some popular belief or superstition in that waterlogged country that red cloth affords the best protection against rheumatism; consequently these jackets all find their way to the land of dykes. The sleeves are cut off, and they are made to button in a doublebreasted fashion; thus remodelled, they are worn next to the skin like a flannel waistcoat by all careful Dutchmen among the labouring classes.

The Irish chiefly favour corduroys, and we suspect the worn-out legs of British pantaloons of this material are cut off, and converted into breeches for Pat. Where he gets those wonderful swallow-tailed coats with brass buttons is a puzzle to all the dealers; it is very certain they do not come from this side of the Channel, and it is equally clear they are remnants of costume two generations back.

Our readers will perhaps have noticed the special avidity the dealers in old clothes evince for all kinds of regimentals, full-dress liveries, Volunteers' uniforms, beadles' coats, &c. Anything specially splendid in this line is marked by the collectors as a sportsman marks any rare and brilliantly plumaged bird, and ultimately it is sure to be bagged by them. One of the largest dealers in London in these showy dresses once said to vs, seeing a Guardsman going along the street,-"A thousand to one that coat comes into my hands." Really the inevitability there appears to be about the destination of these regimentals, if known to their wearers, should make them very uncomfortable. The dealers would, if they could, strip them off their backs just as an eel-woman skins an eel. A Lord Mayor's footman's fulldress livery is viewed by these gentry with wolfish eyes. These are the great prizes of the profession--and their barbaric splendours are destined for a special market-the South Coast of Africa, where nature puts on her most gorgeous apparel, and the great ones of the land are determined to have something to match. Travellers often tell us of the marvellous appearance of the chiefs of these parts when in full mufti; but we scarcely expected to find our old clothes' dealers the regular costumiers of these sable dignitaries, transmitting regimentals, laced liveries, and cocked

hats, as regularly to them as a London tailor sends his clothes to his country customers. And Mumbo Jumbo will not be put off with inferior articles; the slightest blemish in colour or inferiority in cloth is instantly detected and rejected by these semi-savages; hence the greatest care is necessary in catering for their

wants.

It is just possible that the Lord Mayors for these last dozen years would be able to recog nise their own splendid liveries on the backs of a council of these potentates if they could ever be got together for any purpose whatever. We ourselves saw an assortment of well-preserved liveries of the heir to the proudest throne in the world just being packed for exportation to the grand destination of all fine liveries we have just mentioned. It should be some solace to the parish beadle that his clothes, instead of descending in the social scale like those of ordinary civilians, are destined to flame upon the back of some autocrat who holds the lives of thousands of men at his disposal, instead of only being the emblems of terror to poor parish boys.

The vast majority of the scarlet coats of our officers that are a little worn, find their way to the great annual fair at Leipsic. There is a belief in the trade that the destination of this bright scarlet cloth is the cuffs and facings of the civil officials in the Russian Government. However this may be, the fact of second-hand regimentals finding their way to the great German fair is undoubted. The pepper-and-salt greatcoats of our infantry go to our agricultural districts and to the Cape, but the heavier and more valuable artillery cloaks find their way to Holland; and that country and Ireland absorb between them the cast-off clothes of the police.

There is one odd item of old clothes that has a singular history. There is still a certain class in the community addicted to the use of silk-velvet waistcoats. This class is generally to be found among the well-to-do tradesmen of country towns. The longevity of a black silk velvet waistcoat is proverbial; it will not wear out. After adorning the respectable corpora tion of some provincial grocer until he is thoroughly tired of it, what does our reader think is its ultimate destination-the pate of some German or Polish Jew! In obedience to a Rabbinical law, it is not considered right by some of the more conscientious Hebrews to go uncovered, and these second-hand waistcoats are bought up to make skull-caps for their

use.

But old clothes, after they have served the purposes of two or three classes of society, are yet far from closing their career; when they have seen their worst, they take altogether a new lease of existence. As old Jason was renewed, in ancient story, by being ground in a mill, so are our garments in the present day. When old clothes are too bad for anything else, they are still good enough for Shoddy and Mungo. Batley, Dewsbury, and Leeds, have been described as the grand centres of woollen rags-the tatterdemalion capitals, into which are drawn all the greasy, frowsy, cast-off clothes of Europe, and whence issue the pilot cloths, the Petershams, the beavers, the Talmas, the Chesterfields, and the Mohairs in which our modern dandies disport themselves.

The old rags, after being reduced to the condition of wool by enormous toothed wheels, are mixed with a varying amount of fresh wool, and the whole is then worked up into the fabrics we have mentioned, which now have the run of fashion. It is estimated that Shoddy and Mungo supply the materials for a third of

the woollen manufactures of this country. Here is a grand transformation. No man can say that the materials of the coat he is wearing has not been already on the back of some greasy beggar. In one corner of the "animal products department" in the South Kensington Museum, the visitor can see hundreds of specimens of this shoddy and mungo-a perfect resurrection of the old clothes from every country in Europe. The cast-off wardrobes of civilized man by a law of commerce are sucked into this country, and mainly into this metropolis, and in return we distribute it in perfect fabrics, destined to go once more the round of civilization; woollen fabrics are hard to die, and, for all we know, clothes are thus ground up over and over again.

The final destination, however, of all old clothes is the soil; when art can do no more for much-vexed woollen fibre it becomes a land rag, and here as a manure it yields its final service, aiding in the production of food for the veritable body which it once clothed.

T.

THE HOUR-GLASS.

HE use of the Hour-glass can be traced to ancient Greece. In Christie's Greek Vases, one is engraved from a scarabæus of sardonyx, in the Towneley collection: it is exactly like the modern hour-glass.

Bloomfield, in one of his rural tales, "The Widow to her Hour-glass," sings:

"I've often watched thy streaming sand,

And seen the growing mountain rise,
And often found life's hope to stand

On props as weak in wisdom's eyes:
Its conic crown

Still sliding down,
Again heaped up, then down again:
The sand above more hollow grew,

Like days and years still filtering through,
And mingling joy and pain."

The Hour-glass has almost entirely given place to the more useful, because to a greater extent self-acting, instrument; and it is now seldom seen except upon the table of the lecturer or private teacher, in the study of the philosopher, in the cottage of the peasant, or in the hand of the old emblematic figure of Time. We still sometimes see it in the workshop of the cork-cutter. The half-minute glass is still employed on board ship; and the two and a half or three minute glass for boiling an egg with exactness,

Preaching by the Hour-glass was formerly common; and public speakers are timed, in the present day, by the same means. In the

churchwardens' books of St. Helen's, Abingdon, date 1599, is a charge of fourpence for an hour-glass for the pulpit; in 1564 we find in the books of St. Katherine's, Christ Church, Aldgate, "paid for an hour-glass that hangeth by the pulpit when the preacher doth make a sermon, that he may know how the hour passeth away-one shilling;" and in the books of St. Mary's, Lambeth, 1579 and 1615, are similar entries. Butler, in" Hudibras," alludes to pulpit hour-glasses having been used by the Puritans: the preacher having named the text, turned up the glass; and if the sermon did not last till the sand was out, it was said by the congregation that the preacher was lazy; but if, on the other hand, he continued much longer, they would yawn and stretch till the discourse was finished. At the old church of St. Dunstanin-the-West, Fleet Street, was a large hourglass in a silver frame, of which latter, when the instrument was taken down, in 1723, two heads were made for the parish staves. garth, in his "Sleepy Congregation," has introduced an hour-glass on the west side of the pulpit. A very perfect hour-glass is preserved in the church of St. Alban, Wood Street, Cheapside; it is placed on the right of the readingdesk within a frame of twisted columns and arches, supported on a spiral column: the four sides have angels sounding trumpets; and each end has a line of crosses patées and fleurs-delis, somewhat resembling the imperial crown. JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.

Ho

Leaves from the Book of Nature: Descriptive Narrativę,&c.

SHELLS.

HE Carinaria form a remarkable group of mollusca. They were formerly known to collectors as Venus's Slipper and the Glass Nautilus.

The body of the animal is sub-cylindrical, elongated, transparent, dotted with elevated points, prolonged posteriorly, and furnished towards the upper part of its extremity with a sort of fin, which performs the part of a rudder. A reddish, thin, compressed, semicircular fin, beautifully reticulated, and furnished with a kind of sucker, rises from the belly, nearly opposite to the point on the back occupied by the shell; and with the aid of this fin it floats along. The head is capable of contraction within the body, and is provided with a retractile proboscis.

Other varieties of shells are remarkable in a different way. Some are very large in size. As an example of this we may mention those which have been made to form fonts in one of the churches in Paris. Speaking of one of these, the eminent naturalist, Dr. Johnstone, says :

"When shrunk within its shell you might well deem any animal that could hide itself there, all too small and weak to carry about a burden larger and heavier than itself; and that safety might be here advantageously exchanged for relief from so much heaviness of armour,

and from such an impediment to every journey. There is in my cabinet a fine specimen of Cassis tuberosa, which measures fully ten inches in length, and upwards of eight in breadth; another of Strombus gigas, is nearly one foot in length.

66

Yet," continues this distinguished natu ralist, "though the weight of the formerthe Cassis tuberosa-is four pounds, two ounces, and that of the latter-the Strombus gigas-is four pounds, nine ounces, the mollusc creeps under this load with apparent ease. Nor are you much surprised when you see it actually in motion, for the sceming disproportion between the contained animal and containing shell has disappeared.

"On issuing from his shell, like eastern genii freed from their exorcism, the animal has grown visibly-has assumed a portlier size and more pedestrious figure. The body has suddenly become tumid and elastic, the skin and exterior organs stretched and displayed; the foot has grown in length and in breadth, and, with additional firmness, it has acquired the capability of being directed, bent and modified in shape to a considerable degree, as the surface of the road traversed may require."

Examples of shelled creatures will be found in the annexed engraving.

A THOUSAND AND ONE STORIES FROM NATURE.

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.

BY THE REV. F. O. MORRIS, B.A., RECTOR OF NUNBURNHOLME, YORKSHIRE, AND CHAPLAIN TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF CLEVELAND, AUTHOR OF A "HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS' (DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN), ETC., ETC.

THE DOG.

CXX.

We had a pointer in the country, some years ago, which exhibited many most interesting traits of instinct. She was fed regularly at certain periods, but it frequently happened that she obtained food in the interval unknown to us in the field, and was disinclined to eat. She used to watch her opportunity, and if the meat was in a solid form, such as bread, bones,

&c., she went and buried it, intending to discuss it gastronomically at a more convenient season, or preparing for an evil day. As the dog grew old, this habit increased upon her, but without the corresponding good memory, so that frequently after she was dead, the gardener would dig up large pieces of bread, mouldy and black, which she had interred months before.

Jess (for such was her name), though a

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« AnteriorContinuar »