The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, /00POBER 7, 1862.

of faith"—their illiberality is surprising, and it ne-
cessarily alienates all respectable Englishmen from
them.

To deny to Italian Catholics what they
clamour for as Irish or English Catholics—to de-
mand that French bayonets shall for ever hold the
necks of the Romans under the feet of the POPE—
to see Italian Catholics ground beneath the worst
government of Europe, and denied the slightest
freedom of speech, writing, or action—while they
themselves go to the verge of treason—to look on all
this with complacency, that their Vicar of CHRIST,
as they believe him to be, may clutch
to the last a worldly dominion openly
repudiated by CHRIST himself—such things
as these it is which nourish the deep-seated
hatred of JOHN BULL to the Papacy. If Popery—
is the short and homely argument—can so dena-
tionalise British Freemen, then it is not worthy to
be the religion of Freemen. We much wonder that
Cardinal WISEMAN and the priests, who have abso-
lutely in their power the ignorant and brutal
rabble who dishonoured their religion in Hyde
Park last Sunday, do not issue their fiat against
these proceedings. One word from his carriage on
Sunday would have sent his riff-raff home in quiet.
Why was it not given ? We must confess we
think it much more reasonable that he should
tell his Irish, from the altar, that they
must not break heads for the POPE, and
to punish sympathy with civil and religious
liberty at Rome—than, that the tens of thousands of
decent working people in I ondon should be pro-
hibited from peacefully expressing their opinions in
Hyde-park. If anything be prevented, it should be
the carrying of bludgeons or any other offensive
weapons in the parks. We should be slow to de
more than hinder from their purpose those who
went to an open-air meeting, as well as to an in-
door meeting, with obviously violent intentions.
Enough, we should think, if the authorities showed
their determination to protect all who assembled
peacefully.

A Pathetic Appeal (or perhaps it should be
called more correctly Protest) was published eleven
years ago in London against the Costume of
Civilians in familiar life nowadays. It was signed,
this document, by a great number of well known
and influential persons peculiarly competent to pro-
nounce an opinion upon the subject—artists, critics,
and the like. It appeared at the time of the first
great International gathering to take part in the
grand intellectual feast of a vast industrial and
scientific and artistic Exhibition. It was written
literally pro Bono publico, and was addressed to the
world at large while Me Crystal Palace was yet
glittering upon the green sward of Hyde
Park. Among the signatures appended to the
Appeal or Protest, were those of Mr. Tom Taylor
and Mr. George Godwin, and of many of our dis-
tinguished Royal Academicians ; among them—
Charles Leslie and Charles Lsndseer, David
Roberts and Abraham Cooper, H. W. Pickersgill
and W. F. Witherington. The majority of the
public at large, we doubt not, have for-
gotten long since everything whatever about
the protest we are here alluding to. It has
been reproduced nevertheless in its entirety not
long ago, recomposed, reprinted, republished by
womanly hands at Miss Emily Faithful's esta-
blishment. One paragraph of this singular docu-
ment we are tempted here to reproduce ourselves in
the form of a quotation. It is the paragraph in
which the whole purport of the Appeal or Protest
may be said, within the compass of a very few
words, to have been condensed. It runs as
follows :

" Not to dwell on serious evils in regard to health and
comfort, arising from deficiency of ready adaptability to the
hourly variations of weather, it is remarkable, at this period
of advancing taste in architecture, furniture, and decoration
of every inanimate object, that little regard is paid to a
suitable presence. No costume of which there are any
traces was ever so inconsistent with grace, simplicity, and
dignity of aspect, none so uselessly complicated, as an Euro-
pean's of the present day. The unity of the figure is frit-
tered away. Stiff lines and angles disguise the body, and
an uncouth hat crowns the disfiguration. Groups
of men in the ordinary garb gratify no taste
but that of caricature ; neither painting or sculp-
ture can advantageously transmit to futurity a
faithful representation of any event constituted of such a
group. Nor does admixture of female fashions often ob-
viate the difficulty. Family groups of the present date
have seldom any charm beyond the kindred circle. To ex-
pect from art truthful representations of events in which
our contemporaries are engaged in their usual habits is to
expect meanness of aspect to express all that is noble.
Interesting as such faithful painting and sculpture would
certainly be to posterity, they must remain unattempted
until dress displays the flowing lines and harmonious
colours in which nature and art delight. Historical sub-
jects must continue to be sought in remote periods, and to
exemplify chiefly the imagination of the artist ; genuine
scenes of great interest will remain unknown in this high
department of art."

Eleven years have elapsed since our artists, and
critics pleaded thus earnestly with the
common sense of their fellowmen against their
dogged persistence in slavishly following out
the absurdities of what is called Fashion.
Yet, since then, within this last decade, there has
certainly been effected but very little improvement,
indeed, in the manner suggested. Oar male heads
are still crowned with the odious chimney-pot.
And if in coat, waistcoat, and "continuations,"
(as our Yankee cousins first delicately ex-
pressed the forbidden word descriptive of the
nether garment), there are undeniable changes
for the better in the way of the easier
fit, arising from a greater amplitude of raiment
about the limbs and body—there are still
left those sharp and decidedly inartistic angles
complained of in the foregoing extract, angles re-
sulting from the union, particularly upon the
breast of certain sharply defined lines, diagonal, hori-
zontal, and perpendicular. As to the changes that
have taken place in female costume during these
last ten or eleven years, they are in every respect
nothing less than really deplorable. The fantastic
apology for a bonnet now in vogue, being only sur-
passed in absurdity by the nonsensical and
cruelly destructive crinoline. The general
adoption at last, by Englishmen, of the
beard has led to one humanizing improve-
ment at least in our habits, and to another in our
costume. The daily torture of rasping the face with
a razor has been, for the most part, very sensibly
abandoned. The semi-strangulation produced by
the united agency of the stiff upright shirt-collar
and the tight-fitting stock—has given place
to the ease of a clothing for the throat more
compatible with a sense of comfort in exist-
ence. Cannot a new and better epoch in
the annals of Everyday Costume date now from
this second Exhibition. Will not some benevolent
gcmins devote his energies so Effectually to enhance
our personal comforts, that he will rid us at last of
this horrible cylindrical extinguisher called a hat
A
in this way by some ingenious
inventor might
felicitous substitute for a
hat, for him (the inventor) into a very " Cap of
FORTIINATUS'' a cap, happy thought
turn any
that is, that would prove
e of FORTUNATIIS."
to its contriver a very "Purs

THE DON BARONETCY.—This baronetcy will
shortly be taken up by Mr. Wauchope of Edmonstone, who
is now being served heir-male to the title, through his great-
grandfather, Patrick Don, who assumed the name of
~va4ohupe on succeeding to the Edmonsteue estate,—Kelso
!ht4if,