Smyrna times., 1860-01-26
GENTLEMEN'S LEGS.
BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS sALA.

! 90 not OBJECT 10 your studying the eXtreml-
ties of the opposite sex with sufficient assduity,
for next to a mans heart and morals you should
institute a rigid inquiry into the condition of
his legs. man may gain great victories or
suffer shameful defeat through his legs. Never
mind the ridiculous American purists who are
too modest to call spade a spade, and leg a
leg, and nicknaming them supporters" 60
straightway to devise the absurd and immodest
Bloomer costume, giving rise, as it does, to rib
aid comments from men on a part of a lady S
dress with which they have no business, and
ought to know nothing about But you are a
brave English girl, and as you see hundreds of
mems legs every day, you have right to study,
to observe, and to form your opinions on them.
AS rule, good men have good legs. Crooked
legs, crooked minds; that is one Of my notices,
and one which | have seldom found to be in
fault. Your deOr papa had prejudice against
tailors. am more tolerant; and yet can't
help thinking they get morally wrapped from
twisting their legs beneath them, as they are in
the habit Of doing. What dreadful legs some of
our most atrocious criminals have had. The
infamous Burke, my dear, who pitch -plastered
people TO death before you were born, and sold
their bodies to the surgeons, had the very worst
pair OF bow legs that ever were seen. Look
what spelling their legs by sitting taior-faehion
has brought the turks TO. As a walking, free
legged people, they overrun Asia, and conquer
ed Constantnope; but they took to sitting
cross-legged, and became a mere etfeie, degen-
crate set of obtuse barbarans, squatting on
their divans, smoking pipes and drinking coffee
all day long; eating with their fingers order
ing poor creatures, TO be bastlnadoed, if, in
deed, they didn't have them bowstrung or de-
capitated; sewing up their wives, of whom
they have disgra ceful number, in sacks, and
throwing them into the Bosphorus. don't like
the Russians much but it there is one thing
that could reconcile me to their taking Con-
stantinople 1t would be The symmetrical legs,
handsome cut trousers, and beautiful patent
leather boots, which recent travellers assure US
are such distinguished characteristics of the
upper classes of Russians.
In my young days, tight leg was pretty
accurate sign Of gentleman IN your young
days. the loose, or peg-top leg, is fashionable
People who wear tight trousers now days,
are either dancing. masters, walters actors, or
sporting characters and prize fighters, ostlers
and omnibus conductors. But, ah me! what
exquisltely turned legs and feet | have seen in
the days when the arstocracy wore white kerr
seymere smalls, such stockings and pumps
Such smalls, such stockings such shoes wore
my Lord Castlereagh and Sir Thomas Law
peror, as were his manners and department and
genius, although he was but west country
inn.keeper's son. Such snalls wore Nj. de
Chateau BRAND, and Count Pozzi di Borgo and
Prince Metlernich. Such smalls, albeit OF
different texture, wore his most sainted Ma les-
ty, our present Soveregn's reverend uncle,
King George the Fourth, your papa's monarch,
patron and friend. Ah, my dear, what heart,
what leg, had that reverend potentate! You
know have, in my front drawing room here, a
proof before letters OF the almost priceless en-
craving published by CoImagi, of our best OF
princes in his beautiful curly head of hair, his
frogged surtout, with the fur collar and the
star of the garter near his royal heart; his
plump white hand--such hand to kiss, lore =
hanging over the sofa the column and curtain
behind him; the standish and pens by his side
and those immortal legs-one cinctured by the
garter-encased in silk stockiRgs, and finished
by vanished pumps. 1t makes me weep even
now, after all this lapse Of time, 10 contemplate
those blessed legs! Could the ballustrades on
the terrace of the Queen of Sheba's s palace have
equalled those legs! Could the best pianoforte
legs turned in ebony, rose, or walnut-wood in
the establishments of Messrs. Erard and Col
lard, come up TO those unequalled terminations
They don't make such legs now in nature, al
AHOuSH OuS VI my gCIlOW uuhiIiulog WIN Wos
badly wounded in the knee cap at Navarino
tells me that there is a Mr.. Gray, Of Cork st..
Burlington gardens, London, who is perfectly
famous for making artificial limbs, and who ap
plies to order arms, legs, noses, ears, lips, al
most everything indeed that one can have los
in war. During the Crimean war, Mr.. Gray
80 my yellow admiral says, was perfect cent?
pede in false legs, and now his legs 60 Il
Court, and mount on horseback, and polka ant
waltz, and kick people down stairs, and do al
most as many things as the celebrated Syden
lam trousers of Messrs. Samuel Brothers
which are so extensively advertised that thel
seem resolved on putting a girdle round th
earth in forty minutes, and for seventeen an,
sixpence. Heigho! Mr., Gray may be clev
er man, but can he make a new heart; can he
with all his cunning development Of anatomica
analogy, give me a counterpart of the Orga
that pulsaIed with hope and happiness, in th
days Of smaIls and pumps! can no more, m
a dear; the memory of days forever fled, an
n King George the Fourth's legs, are too muc
Q for your affectionate mother. Yet l like III
e present peg.tops, aud think them becomin
: and manly, when they are not oulrageousl
:, loose at the hips and tight at the boots. &c
J. bless you. CONsTANTIA CHESTERFIELD.
h . a-. -----~~~~~----