The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-03
THE NEW YORK PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT TOPICs--CoMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
Diplomatic Dressing.


From the Tribune
Congress has decided, very properly, that
our representatives abroad shall not go to
court in the dress of glorifed circus-rider
with small swords liable to get between their
legs and PROSTATE them in the very presence
of anointed royalty. OF this determination,
we have already spoken briefly but APPROX
ingly; but we beg leave to recur to the sub
iect, because upon examination we have found
that Congress reserves the right to prescribe
uniform and as Congress is never easy unless
il is doing something, we fear that at the first
leisure moment of the next session JOINT
Special Committee on Coats and Breeches
will be raised. Now, tailoring is one of
the fine arts and we are morally GER
tain that if any attempt shall be made to
invent, arrange, and determine costume
for the poor ambassadors, their last state will
be worse than their first. 1t is not impossible
that even Mr.. Leutze may be called upon to
design the gala raiment and from his hands
we leave the connoisseurs to decide what a
Josephs coat of many colors, or what oriental,
medieval, American Indian, or Thespian cloth
eonglomeratiOns may be expected. Who does
not remember how the lamented Burton,
arrayed as a mummy, would get out Of his
sarcophagus, and stalking down to the foot
lights, dTolly eXclaim:-'Pll be ID If am
the unfortunate plenipotentiaries shifting their
official thighs with wrath, and making like
mortifyng confession in the hearing of the
giggling foreigners.
We refer, however, to the subject again
that we may hint to all concerned that, if a
livery is to be fixed upon, now is the accepted
time for fixing it and for fetching it into
fashion. We have had painful occasion lately
to point out to the country that too many of
its foreign representatives are not made of the
stiffest stuff in the world; and we are not pre-
pared to deny that there are some of them
hunkies in heart and soul and speech, who
might be turned with the utmost prOpriety
into funllies in costume. The men who
morally made haste to PROSTATE themselves at
the feet of the President would wear
blazing small-clothes, yellow waistcoats, sky
blue coats, green stockings, and drum
majors cap, if commanded by Mr.. Johnson,
the man of their reverence, and by Mr..
Seward the man of their love, to swathe their
cringing shoulders and their knee-crook-
ing legs in such rainbow toggery, or to crown
their noble brows with the bear-skin and the
cocktail of their office. If diplomatic uni
forms are to come in these are the men, if
men they may be called, to temper the first
rush of ridicule, and to make the sight of
their worthier successors just a little less
ludicrous. But we insist upon it that this is
Mr.. Johnson's business, and not the business
of Congress. Those who kiss his feet for
favors should be willing to wear his colors;
and it should be for him to say by what form
of dress he will distinguish his servants. For
some of them presently sackcloth and ashes
will be the only wear; but while they continue
his thrice humble servitors, let him array
them like Solomon in all his glory, if so his
Excelency pleases.