Influence on Social Life. 103 carriage, because her enormous head-dress would not allow her to occupy the seat. They were, however, of a different description from the heart-shaped and steeple head-dresses worn by the een of Charles VI. of France, to admit whom, when full dressed, the doors of the palace at Vincennes were obliged to be altered. As the head-dress rose, the skirts generally contracted; and when the high top-knots came down, hoops of different patterns and dimensions flourished. First came the wheel fardingale, like a huge drum; then the triangular whalebone; then hoops of graduated sizes. In 1745 they expanded at the sides, and contracted in front; ten years later they became scarcely discernible; and in 1757 they reappeared, and swelled into the enormous dimensions of the court dresses of the reign of George III. His successor, George IV., banished them from his court; and the fashion departed to reappear in these days in the expanding crinoline. The imitation of male attire by the other sex has called forth the satire of writers from the days of the Conqueror to the present time. In the fourteenth century, the ladies had their 'cotehardies' buttoned down the front like the men, with pockets outside, their waistcoats, and their paletoques;' and Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales,' gives some graphic descriptions of the prevailing costumes, and makes a parson lament the sinful costly array of clothing of both sexes. The ladies, we are told, passeth the men in all manner of arraies and curious clothing." At the close of the fifteenth century, Strutt remarks, that the dress of the English was so absurd that it was difficult to distinguish one sex from the other; and he quotes part of the instructions given to the chamberlain of Henry VII. Warme your soverayne hys petticotte, hys doublett, and hys stomacher, and then put on hys hozen, and then hys schone or slyppers, then stryten up his hozen mannerly, and tye them up, then lace hys doublett hole by hole.' In the days of Elizabeth, Stubbs writes, in his Anatomy of Abuses,' The women have doublets and jerkins as the men have, buttoned up to the breast, and made with wings and pinions on the shoulder-points, as man's apparel in all respects; and although this be a kind of attire proper only to a man, yet they blush not to wear it.' Addison, too, in the Spectator,' repeatedly censures the male attire of the ladies; and he gives, in No. 104, a description of a lady whose sex can only be recognized by a very small petticoat of blue camlet. The coat, waistcoat, hat, and male periwig formed the fashionable riding dress of the ladies. 6 We have thus illustrated a few of the freaks of Fashion by referring rather to the customs of our ancestors than to those of the present day, with which, we presume, most of our readers are familiar. From the same source we might show that extravagant fashions fashions have exerted a most baneful influence on social life. Frequently the national exchequer has been exhausted by the extravagant habits of the people. The Normans first ruined the Saxons, and then themselves, by their costly fashions. Kings and queens often either ignored their bills, or pawned their plate and jewels to pay for their dress; and sometimes even robbed their rich subjects to support their extravagance. We might almost imagine that Stubbs was referring to our own times rather than to those of Elizabeth, when he tells us that, sooner than go without the last new fashion, men would 'mortgage their land, or risk the loss of their lives at Tyburn with a rope.' The nation has more than once been on the verge of ruin in consequence of the extravagance of all classes; and in the days of Edward III. the following stanzas were fastened to the church doors to rebuke the growing evil : 'Long beirds hertiless, Maketh England thriftless.' Parliament attempted to remedy the evil on many occasions by passing sumptuary laws which should regulate the costumes of the different classes of society; but the decrees were generally unheeded, and the prohibited articles were even more eagerly coveted than before the interference of Parliament. Every species of vice flourished under the shade of extravagant fashions; and the gaol and the gibbet failed to warn men of the consequences of their reckless conduct. In vain the earnest clergy denounced these fashions from the pulpit; in vain monks and friars proclaimed crusades, and satirists wrote their ponderous tomes in ancient, and their pamphlets in modern, times against them: an occasional success was all they could achieve, and Fashion continued to perform her freaks with great celerity. The fashions of the present day are exerting a most injurious influence on domestic life and morality. There is now a strife among the different classes of society which shall be the greatest. The city merchant imitates the style of his aristocratic neighbour in the mansion he must occupy, the equipage he must drive, the company he must entertain, and the appearance his family must make in society. The prosperous tradesman imitates the merchant, the clerk his employer, and even the servant her mistress; and in the great struggle to keep up appearance, each launches out into extravagant expenditure, lives up to, even if he does not go beyond, his average income, and often becomes reckless of consequences so long as the fashionable appearance is maintained. There is a story told of an Irishman who, on returning from market one day, was observed lashing his horse most furiously and Injury on Middle and Lower Classes. 6 105 and galloping by the side of two gentlemen. His friend, seeing fish after fish drop on the road from his panniers, cried out to him to stop, or he would lose all his fish. Hurrah!' cried Pat, bother tak ye, and what do I care so long as I keep up with the gintlemen? It is this keeping up with the gintlemen,' at any cost, which is the source of much of the domestic unhappiness, commercial dishonesty, and criminal frauds to which our attention has been so recently drawn. The ladies must have their splendid silks and expensive lace, or they positively affirm they have nothing to wear;' the gentlemen must have their sumptuous dinners well served, and expensive wines, or they raise the piteous cry they have nothing to eat; the family must possess its suburban mansion, elegantly furnished, its gay equipage, and its rounds of balls and parties, or else life becomes a mean vulgar thing, scarcely to be endured! The goddess, Fashion, must be revered; her smiles are captivating, and her frowns withering: her favour, therefore, must be propitiated at any cost; and honour, truth, social virtue, and even common honesty must be sacrificed to maintain the worship of this powerful deity! The recent treaty between England and France is likely to give a fresh impetus to the freaks of Fashion in this country, especially in dress; and when we think of the many splendid houses which have already been crushed by these freaks, and see 'the thousands of lovely victims who have been ruined by such catastrophes, we may well ask, with the Rev. Lord S. G. Osborne, Where is the present wild extravagance in "dress," to end? Is each succeeding season to record its ruinous increase? Is it possible that folly can further go-that English ladies will become more enslaved to a power which is gradually vitiating the taste of every class? Extravagance in dress is the fostering parent of many injurious fashions, and these not only vitiate the taste,' but also destroy the self-respect, the happiness, and prosperity of every class that imitates them. The fashionables often resort to the meanest tricks to increase the splendour of their appearance, and grind down their different tradesmen, who, in their turn, oppress their dependents and workpeople. Nor does the injurious influence of Fashion end there. The children receive an education of a vitiated character; they grow up with false views of life, and early learn to imitate, and sometimes to surpass, the extravagance of their parents. In the recent discussions in the daily journals on marriage and the great social evil, the baneful influence of extravagant habits on young persons was painfully illustrated. They naturally hesitate to enter the connubial state till they can afford to support the expenditure of a fashionable establishment; hence the young ladies either pine away in single life, and fall victims to fashionable follies, or render the domestic hearth un happy; happy; and the young men perpetuate and increase that terrible social evil, which disfigures our streets, and stains our national character. The baneful influence extends throughout the middle and lower classes, which often find that, by imitating the fashions of those above them, to use the words of Cowper, They sacrifice to dress, till household joys And comforts cease.' Their income is heavily taxed to keep up an appearance beyond their position and means; and, whether it be small or large, it frequently becomes insufficient to secure domestic comfort, as well as provide for extravagant habits. Poverty then gathers, like a threatening thunder-cloud, over the dwelling; and when any sudden event transpires, by which the income is diminished, or the necessary expenditure is increased, the storm of sorrow begins to fall. Business is crippled, and often surrounded by serious difficulties, for want of the money that has been lavished in extravagant fashions; debts are contracted with scarcely a hope of their being discharged; things daily grow more black and menacing; peace and joy depart; anxious care takes possession of the spirits; the grim features of exposure and ruin become painfully distinct; and in the fearful struggle for life and position, recourse is sometimes had to practices condenined equally by morality and law, to avert the disasters which extravagance has caused. Many who were once prosperous and happy have been ruined by Fashion; and some are now paying the penalty of their recklessness in our prisons and penal establishments. Wherever Fashion's voice becomes imperative, and leads her votary along her changeful path, she becomes the tyrant, and mankind her slave. Life then is stripped of its true dignity and importance; time and wealth, which might have been usefully employed in reclaiming the lost, and cheering the miserable, are frittered away on empty shows; a restless dissatisfaction breeds contempt for the sober duties of life; class strives against class in a most undignified and ruinous competition; and the votary ere long becomes the victim, and, while attempting to keep up with the swift revolving wheel of Fashion, is suddenly dashed to the ground, and broken to pieces. There is such a thing in life as propriety, and what may be very becoming in one station becomes very ridiculous in another. Extravagant fashions are unseemly in all walks of life; and they can have little idea of the dignity and design of life, whose thoughts seldom rise beyond the consideration of what they shall eat, or what they shall drink, or wherewithal shall they be clothed. ART. The West Indies-Past and Present. 107 ART. II.—1. Parliamentary Papers on the West Indies. 2. Edinburgh Review. 1858. 3. The West Indies and the Spanish Main. By Anthony Trollope. HE West India question is both interesting and complicated. The unique Act of Emancipation, the appalling suffering of the negroes under slavery, and the subsequent chequered history of those beautiful cyclades, give to the British West Indian colonies an interest and importance that richly deserve recurrent attention. Perhaps there are few subjects upon which more contradictory statements have been received: it behoves us, then, to look at this matter with care and candour. The morally sublime reached its culmination, when, at the striking of the midnight hour of the 31st of July, 1834, 800,000 negroes were transformed, as by the touch of magic, from chattels into human beings. Their jubilant shout was echoed by the rejoicings of Great Britain, as it reflected with becoming pride upon an act, which is alike without precedent or imitation. But the question recurs, has enfranchisement answered or not? The reply to this inquiry depends entirely upon how we understand the question. Viewed morally, the greatest foe to religion cannot deny that it has fully met the expectations of the most sanguine philanthropists and abolitionists. Where once there was stolid ignorance, there is now, in almost every village of the Caribbean Islands, the busy hum of the day-school. In lieu of promiscuous intercourse and licentiousness, there is the Divine institution of marriage, with its well-ordered families. Instead of unending toil, no wages, and Sunday markets, there are stated hours of labour, generally few; regular wages, and a sabbathkeeping, happy peasantry; and where the once indecent and inhuman practice of flogging females prevailed, women are now, in many cases, relieved from agricultural labour, are found at home-their natural position-regulating their family duties, the husband providing for his household: while the clean, whitewashed cottage, with shingled roof, piazza, commodious central sitting-room, with a bed-room at each end, bright furniture, and its brighter china and glasses, pictures hanging on the walls, outbuildings for cooking, &c., and flower-garden in front of the village cottage, all speak of an amazing advance in civilization; while some of these sable children of Ham have a refinement of manner, and gracefulness of mien quite aristocratic; and, to say the least, in sobriety, decorum, and morality generally, they are on a par with the peasantry of England. Socially and morally, emancipation has assuredly paid a hundred times over. But has it also |