The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-13 00:00:00

SOLEMN TRIFLING.

The important question of the clothes of our
foreign ministers, or, as they are called in the lofty
language of the Congressional reports, "diplomatic
apparel," came up in the Senate on Wednesday of
last week in the shape of a joint resolution,
reported by Mr. Sumner from the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, prohibiting American re-

presentatives abroad from wearing " court, cos-
tume" on certain occasions. This important
problem of what dress the American ambassa-
dors ought to wear when they go to see a king
or emperor has been discussed several times
within the last fifteen years, and the whole
attention of some great minds has been directed
to it, —but, we believe, without reaching any
satisfactory solution. One reason why the
nation has ever been vexed by it is this : that
diplomacy not being a regular profession with us,
and appointments in the diplomatic service being
made with reference solelyto the candidate's political
services at home, a great many persons from time
to time make their way into foreign missions who,
not having any taste or social judgment, cannot be
trusted to dress themselves as representatives of
the United States. There being no rule on the
subject, some equip themselves for court cere-
monials in costumes of their own invention, which
would suit a harlequin better than the ambas-
sador of a republic ; and others go into court circles
in attire which might pass at a South-western bar-
becue, but which in the Old World simply procures
for the wearers the reputation of being barbarians,
and for the people who employ them the reputation
of being fools.
Now, courts in Europe, as we not long ago had
occasion to remark, are considered private houses.
The king's palace is not, as the White House is,
"an executive mansion," the property of the
nation, in which a certain officer is allowed to reside
temporarily, and in which he is expected to re-
ceive all comers. Emperors and kings have as
absolute and as well recognised a right to decide
whom they shall invite to their palaces, or receive
in'them, as any man in America to decide whom he
shall receive in his own house. Ambassadors do
not go to court in their official capacity. They go
as distinguished strangers, to whom the sovereign,
as the first gentleman or lady in the country,
feels bounds to show attention. Usage—and in
matters of dress there is no higher authority
than usage—has in all European countries pre-
scribed a certain costume for persons going to
court, just as it has prescribed a certain cos-
tume for persons going to a private dinner party.
The dress in,which a man goes to the Tuileries or
to St. James's is, perhaps, somewhat more ridicu-
lous than the dress in which a man goes to -spend
the evening with the Earl of Derby or M. Rouher ;
but there is no more moral or political significance
in the one than in the other. Why do men wear
black clothes and white cravats at dinner parties
nowadays? lo this there is h 0 answer except
that it gives pleasure to their hostess and her
other guests to see them in that costume, and their
wearing it is taken to be an indication of the respect
in which they hold the entertainment. The very
same thing may be said of court dress. Persons
wear it at a particular house on festive occasions be-
cause other people do, because it looks nice ; but
no defence can be found for it either in principles
of political philosophy or in political economy. If
any great statesman or logician chooses to assail
it he is sure of an easy victory. But, then, if
we had to justify, book in hand, all the little ob-
servances by which we seek either to gratify our own
vanity, or that of other people, or to adorn or
beautify or smooth over iateicou:so with cur fellows,
we should soon find that the only thoroughly logical
and " simple" costume was a bag with three holes
in it, and the only permissible entertainment, the
distribution of broken victuals to paupers.
It seems to us that Democracy has- no " mes-
sage," to use the cant phrase, to deliver with regard
to dress. What Democracy has been sent into the
world to preach is liberty—liberty in clothes as
well as in opinions, free play for individual taste as
well as for individual faculties. When Congress,
therefore, undertakes to prescribe what a minister
shall not wear at a ball, it is guilty of just the
same weakness as the monarch who prescribes
what dress he shall wear. In both cases the idea
which forms the base of the order is that a man's
clothes are of great consequence and have a sym-
bolic character—that knee-breeches and a bag-wig
represent one principle and a plain suit of black
another. But the truth is that if it be ridiculousto
assert monarchical principles by wearing a court
suit, it is also ridiculous to assert republican prin-
ciples by wearing a frock coat and black satin vest.
With all this folly our Government ought to have
nothing to do. Our business is to prove the insig-
nificance, and not the significance, of clothes. If we
have no better way of exemplifying our polity than
displaying our minister in black broadcloth at court
festivals, when everybody else wears gold lace, it is
time we gave up exemplifying it altogether. What
the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and both
Houses of -Congress ought to do is to dismiss the
subject of ministers' clothes from their thoughts
at once and for ever; and devote them-
selves to the task of providing good ministers.
If we only send abroad able, educated, and accom-
plished men of high character and honourable ante-
cedents, and trained for their work, we may safely
let them wear what kind of suit they please, and
feel sure that neither our fame nar our interests will
suffer in their hands. " A man's a man" whatever
covers his back, and as long as our whole civil
service is in its present condition resolutions
directed against particular kinds of breeches
look very like a grand washing of the
outside of the cup while within all is unclean-
ness. The Washington correspondent of the New
York Times unconsciously touched upon the root
of all the trouble the other day when, in approving
of the resolution of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
in the usual stereotyped way, he said that when some
of our ministers now got their court suits on, " the
American citizen was entirely lost sight of." Anybody
in whom the American citizen disappears under a
court suit we may be sure never had much of it
about him. The same correspondent lays down the
rule that all our foreign ministers ought on all occa-
sions to wear the dress of a "plain American gentle-
man." Why not have pictures of " the plain
American gentleman" taken and sent to all our
foreign legations, and despatch democratic tailors
once a year on a tour of inspection to see if any
diplomatic officer was departing from this great
model ?—The Nation.

Here and there in the South a politician or a
newspaper of influence puts faith in the Supreme
Court, and stands out against Reconstruction under
the Military Bill. Mr. Parsons, for instance, can
see no reason why the people of Alabama " should
make the monstrous act of Congressional usurpa-
tion their act," and wants them to wait. The
Montgomery Mail explains to its readers that Mr.
Seward said so and so in 1862, and Mr. Lincoln
said this and that in his first inaugural, and that
therefore true Americans oppose military recon-
struction bills. The Charleston Mercury says that
within a month a case can be made up for the
Supreme Court, and the trial of it begun. Mean-
time, till the constitutionality of the law is passed
upon, the Mercury counsels obedience to the mili-
tary authority. But the tone of the press generally
shows that action under the law will not long be
delayed. The New Orleans Crescent thinks the
do-nothing policy of the South in the past
was a wise one, but that the moment has ar-
rived when a change is desirable and neces-
sary. This will not be hard to do, the
Norfolk Virginian thinks, for " Buckskin and
Cuffey are naturally allied, but Cuffey and Nutmeg
are born antipodes." "We should find in him,"
the Virginian says, " our natural friend and ally"—
the reason given being that the negro knows the
true gentleman at a glance. The Index, of Peters-
burg, Virginia, urges the education of the freedmen,
and Mr. Wade Hampton and other gentlemen of
South Carolina give plain indications of an inten-
tion to utilise their coloured brother in the politi-
cal field. The results of the change in Southern
tactics will certainly be of advantage to the
coloured men. Whether or not the newly en-
franchised freedmen will be of advantage to the
Republican, or to the other party, is a question
which cannot be answered beforehand with any cer-
tainty. We expect the coloured vote to go very
often with the Southern candidate in local and
Congressional elections, and we do not doubt that
it can, with very little difficulty, be had for the
Republican Presidential candidate. It can in the
next election, at any rate, and the reason why is
too plain to need stating.—The Nation.
THE RECORD-OFFICE, FETTER-LANE. The
central tower of the Record-office, which is now nearly
completed, is to have on each of its four sides a statue,
under a canopy that stands above the parapet—th
and e Em-
press Matilda, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Auno, Queen
Victoria. The execution of these statues has been en-
trusted by Mr. Pennethorne to Mr. Joseph Durham,
A.R.A. The statue of Queen Victoria was
the first
placed in its nook, and that of the Etnpress Matilda has just
been erected. Queen Anne will be there before the 20th of
April, and Queen Elizabeth by the 18th of May; and thus
the tower will be completed, and all scaffolding removed
by June. The statues, which aro admirably executed, are
above the size of li:e, a fact that would scarcely be
guessed from below.—liiaider.