The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-23
THE APRIL MAGAZINES.
M PITNAM,a.V

American Dress, Professor de we're; "A
Queen of Society,"" Colonel J. w. Deforest;
Concerning Charlotte" (concluded), M. O.
p; "a Night on the Mississippi Cn war
time), Ross Gufin; 'Insect-Life in Winter,
s. F. Cooper; Madrid, from Noon till Mid
night, A. A. Adee; "The Eastern Portal to
the Pole" Professor 7. B. Maury; 'In Ex-
tremis, Edw. Renaud; "a Woman's Right"
", Mrs. M. @. Ames "The New South
what it is Doing and what it Wants, Ed. de
Leon; "Predicatoriana: Old Sensation
Preachers, Rev. j. villa Blake; MARY Rus
sell Milford" H. T. Tuckerman; "a Pom
peian Enigma" Leonard Kip; ''The Ameri-
can Doctrine of Neutrality" Editorial Notes."
Literature at Home, r. H. Stoddard; ''Lite-
rature and Art Abroad, Bayard Taylor.
From Professor de Vere's paper entitled
american Dress" we make these extracts;-
Unfortunately, here also the tendency of
republican institutions to level downward, at
least as much as upward, has not failed to
show its effects. Men in the so-called higher
classes dress with a slovenliness, and an utter
disregard to comfort as well as to comeliness
which is astonishing to the foreigner. If
questioned on the subject, they reply, more
americana, by question: Why should they
do otherwise? +? Where the warehouse-porter
dresses in all points like the millionaire in
the counting-room, and where the maid
claims the right to wear the best robes of her
mistress, whenever she desires it, there is no
longer any incentive for dressing really well
and with special care. Even the slight pecu-
liarities which mark the gentleman in Eng
land and on the Continent, the careful choice
of well-matched colors, the plain but be-
coming cut of the clothes to suit the stout or
the thin man, and the cold or the warm
season, and above all the fneness and spot
less purity of the linen, are rarely noticed in
American society. All such special care be-
slowed upon matters of dress would excite at
tention and might become an impediment in
counting popularity. The favorites of the
people, the rulers of the nation, are all of
them more or less self-made men; they have
been sitting eross-legged on the tailor's bench
or they have been fatboatmen on the Missis-
sippi, or carried loads of wood into town; and
however little this may interfere with the
development of stern integrity, brilliant
genius, and matchless valor, it produces out
ward results very different from those which
are caused by careful training in childhood
and hereditary od-breeding, The American
citizen must not dress BETTER even if he have
the taste and the leisure to do so, than the
idol of a nation or the victorious chieftain.
The Clothing store" is every mans tailor,
and the supply, manufactured by the hundred
thousand, is sent from the great trade centres
to every part of the Union. The man who
from the Hub of the Universe directs the
intellectual life of the nation, dresses exactly
like the Nevada miner in his meeting house
costume, and the incorrigible Rebel of Geor-
gia cannot be distinguished from the loyal
clerk in the departments at Washington, nor
the pious divine from the blatant Mormon in
the City of the Saints.
Young men, of course, are capable of the
folly of dressing in European style: they have
their morning and their dinner costume; they
dress for the country and for the opera-as
long as their tailors' bills are paid from the
paternal purse or Cupid spurs them on and
they move in "the bloom of young desire and
purple light of love-" But the change is as
distressing as it is sudden, when the motive
is withdrawn. No sooner has Young Hope
full established himself in business or brought
mistress to his ''princely mansion" than
all such trifing attention to dress and out
ward appearance is forgotten, and he sinks
without sigh into the vast army of citizens,
who all think and dress and act alike. Hence
forth he loses his individuality. The wisp
rarely absent from Lord Palmerston's lips,
the white cravat of Guizot, and the famous
E'three hairs" of Bismarck are of as little
interest to him as the little hat and the gray
greatcoat of Napoleon and the scrupulously
correct costume of the Iron Duke; and yet
these pecnliarities are held by some not to be
entirely uninteresting and unmeaning.
How the traveller on his weary way through
the Union sighs for some change of costume !!
How he loathes the unfailing black coat and
tall hat The everlasting costume, varied at
best only bymore or less beard, meets him in
the counting-room and at the horse-race, at
the political barbecue and in nine pulpts out
of ten; the gambler behind his faro table sits
there in dress coat and ''beaver," as national
custom has it, and so does the judge on his
bench; dress coat and ''beaver" travel on
crowded stages in outlying territories, and
follow the plough in ancient homesteads II
is said that political feelings did for time
at least hold out some hope that there
might arise a variety of costume; the
Northern Boys in Blue loved to see them.
selves dressed in blue, and appeared in square
toed boots and regular dress coats on solemn
occasions, while the men in gray preferred
the Confederate color, abhorred square toes
and indulged, for the sake of opposition
mainly, in vast frockcoats hanging down tc
the feet. Two such costumes have become
almost historical: The leader, who maintained
his ground SO long against immensely supe
rior numbers and gross imbecility in thu
councils of his chief, has become endearet
to the Southerner in his gray citizens dress
which harmonizes so well with the placid
lofty features and the silvery hair and beard
The other is the stereotype bridegroom o
the Southwest: patent-leather boots, gloss
broadcloth from head to foot, with vast over
flowing skirts, white satin vest with a super
diamond pin in the embroidered and frille
bosom, and-a patent paper collar.
1t must be added, however. that if th
A shows in his dracc naif fbar ,a,.yo