The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1902-10-02
THE CENTURY OF TROUSERS.
One Hundred Years Ago the Long
Legged Garments Were First
Worn and RidIcuIed.

This year is the centenary of the
adoption of the long leg covering
known first as pantaloons and then
as trousers. Like the name of the
man who designed the pyramids, the
name of the man who designed the
first pantaloOns is forgotten; but the
achievement of his brain has captured
all the masculine world from the car
Aot Russia to the meanest digger in the
meanest ditch of the United States
As with many other inventors. his de-
wee was not popular. and perhaps it
would never have been appreciated by
the world if the son of George III. had
not bent his mind to the task. He was
the admired of all England as the
prince of Wales. He was Beau Brum-
mels friend George" and proud of
the honor. except on occasions when
he happened to be peevish He had
achieved the brilliant invention of
new shoe buckle. But his was an in
defatigable mind. and needed large
subjects to fill it. The long panta-
looms did it, says the Chicago Tribune
In 1902 the pantaloon was without
honor. The exquisite laughed at it.
and the common man despised it. If
any impious person had dared to sug-
gest to any of the exquisites of that
day that they exchange their knee
breeches and silken stockings for this
hldeous garment-but nobody dared to
suggest.
Now, historians who have studied
the weighty subject of his reign add
that George and many of his court
iers were afflicted sadly with govt,
which is not unreasonable. This govt
caused unseemly swellings and pro-
tuberances on the noble legs. making
them unpleasant objects when in
cased in tight and thin silk stockings.
And George was a royal Simon Taper
tit, so far as his pride III his legs was
concerned. Therefore. by becoming
the patron of the pantaloon. George
satisfied both his ethical pride as a
beau and his manly vanity as the most
beautiful male human object in his
realm.
The pantaloon could have found no
L
the badge of democracy, the garment
of the sans-culottes of the French rev.
olution. and it was only great expo
nent of royalty who could have dared
to press its claims. Although the
pantaloon had won adherents through
out France. it was worn there less as a
matter of fashion than of politics. In
that narinI Uraroh,,n,, = 4
hair. and their wives and their dogs,
and their legs according to their po-
litical and religious beliefs
Jefferson brought the pantaloons
back from France after his terms as
minister there and wore them as being
in strict keeping with his notions Of
democratic simplicity. Naturally they
had some vogue in the United States
after that. But the ma jority of those
who wore them in both America and
England wore them not as articles OF
fashion but rather as protests against
the arbitraments of fashion.
Gilray and other cartoonists of the
period made savage fun of the new
mode. Artists refused to paint their
patrons in them. Women ridiculed the
wearers of them.
Yet the net result of the warfare
was that by 1929 pantaloons were worn
by almost everybody except the de
lightful old-fashioned persons who
stalk through the pages of Dickens
and Thackeray in their knee brooches
and bag wigs.
IAIIGIrTEp AC on0n6AnnI GLIDE