No Southern silver-tongued orator
of the old-time, string-tied, slouch-hatted, long- haired variety
ever clung more closely to his official makeup than the English
barrister clings to his spats, his shad-bellied coat and his
eye-glass dangling on a cord. At a glance one knows the medical
man or the journalist, the military man in undress or the gentleman
farmer; also, by the same easy method, one may know the workingman
and the penny postman. The workingman has a cap on his head and
a neckerchief about his throat, and the legs of his corduroy
trousers are tied up below the knees with strings - else he is no
workingman.
When we were in London the postmen were threatening to go on strike.
From the papers I gathered that the points in dispute had to do
with better hours and better pay; but if they had been striking
against having to wear the kind of cap the British Government makes
a postman wear, their cause would have had the cordial support and
intense sympathy of every American in town.
It remains for the English clerk to be the only Englishman who
seeks, by the clothes he wears in his hours of ease, to appear as
something more than what he really is. Off duty he fair1y dotes
on the high hat of commerce. Frequently he sports it in connection
with an exceedingly short and bobby sackcoat, and trousers that
are four or five inches too short in the legs for him. The Parisian
shopman harbors similar ambitions - only he expresses them with
more attention to detail. The noon hour arriving, the French
shophand doffs his apron and his air of deference. He puts on a
high hat and a frock coat that have been on a peg behind the door
all the morning, gathers up his cane and his gloves; and, becoming
on the instant a swagger and a swaggering boulevardier, he saunters
to his favorite sidewalk cafe for a cordial glassful of a pink or
green or purple drink. When his little hour of glory is over and
done with he returns to his counter, sheds his grandeur and is
once more your humble and ingratiating servitor.
In residential London on a Sunday afternoon one beholds some weird
and wonderful costumes. On a Sunday afternoon in a sub-suburb of
a Kensington suburb I saw, passing through a drab, sad side street,
a little Cockney man with the sketchy nose and unfinished features
of his breed. He was presumably going to church, for he carried
a large Testament under his arm. He wore, among other things, a
pair of white spats, a long-tailed coat and a high hat. It was
not a regular high hat, either, but one of those trick-performing
hats which, on signal, will lie doggo or else sit up and beg.
