Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 7

cherished friend, whose labours ought not to be
entombed beneath the superstructure. The buttons!--oh, for a pen of
steam to write upon those buttons! They, indeed, are the
aristocracy--the yellow turbans, the sun, moon, and stars of the woollen
system! They have nothing in common with the coat--they are _on it_,
and that's all--they have no further communion--they decline the

button-holes, and eschew all right to labour for their living--they
announce themselves as "the last new fashion"--they sparkle for a week,
retire to their silver paper, make way for the new comers, and, years
after, like the Sleeping Beauty, rush to life in all their pristine splendour,
and find (save in the treble-gilt aodication and their own accession) the
coat, the immortal coat, unchanged! The waistcoat is of a material
known only to themselves--a sort of nightmare illusion of velvet,
covered with a slight tracery of refined mortar, curiously picked out
and guarded with a nondescript collection of the very greenest green
pellets of hyson-bloom gunpowder tea. The buttons (things of use in
this garment) describe the figure and proportions of a large turbot. They
consist of two rows (leaving imagination to fill up a lapse of the absent),
commencing, to all appearance, at the _small of the back_, and
reaching down even to the hem of the garment, which is invariably a
double-breasted one, made upon the good old dining-out principle of
leaving plenty of room in the victualling department. To complete the
catalogue of raiment, the untalkaboutables have so little right to the
name of drab, that it would cause a controversy on the point. Perhaps
nothing in life can more exquisitely illustrate the Desdemona feeling of
divided duty, than the portion of manufactured calf-skin appropriated to
the peripatetic purposes of these gentry; they are, in point of fact,
invariably that description of mud-markers known in the purlieus of
Liecester-square, and at all denominations of "boots"--great, little, red,
and yellow--as eight-and-sixpenny Bluchers. But the afore-mentioned
drabs are strapped down with such pertinacity as to leave the observer
in extreme doubt whether the Prussian hero of that name is their
legitimate sponsor, or the glorious Wellington of our own sea-girt isle.
Indeed, it has been rumoured that (as there never was a pair of either of
the illustrious heroes) these gentlemen, for the sake of consistency,
invariably perambulate in one of each. We scarcely know whether it be
so or not--we merely relate what we have heard; but we incline to the
_two Bluchers_, because of the _eight-and-six_. The only additional
expense likely to add any emolument to the _tanner's_ interest (we
mean no pun) is the immense extent of sixpenny straps generally worn.
These are described by a friend of ours as belonging to the great class
of _coaxers_; and their exertions in bringing (as a nautical man would
say) the trowsers to bear at all, is worthy of notice. There is a legend

extant (a veritable legend, which emanated from one of the fraternity
who had been engaged three weeks at her Majesty's theatre, as one of
twenty in an unknown chorus, the chief peculiarity of the affair being
the close approximation of some of his principal foreign words to "Tol
de rol," and "Fal the ral ra"), in which it was asserted, that from a
violent quarrel with a person in the grass-bleached line, the body
corporate determined to avoid any unnecessary use of that commodity.
In the way of wristbands, the malice of the above void is beautifully
nullified, inasmuch as the most prosperous linen-draper could never
wish to have less linen on hand. As we are describing the genus in
black and _white_, we may as well state at once, those are the colours
generally casing the throats from whence their sweet sounds issue;
these ties are garnished with union pins, whose strong mosaic tendency
would, in the Catholic days of Spain (had they been residents), have
consigned them to the lowest dungeons of the Inquisition, and favoured
them with an exit from this breathing world, amid all the uncomfortable
pomp of an _auto-da-fe_.
It is a fact on record, that no one of the body ever had a cold in his head;
and this peculiarity, we presume, exempts them from carrying
pocket-handkerchiefs, a superfluity we never witnessed in their hands,
though they indulge in snuff-boxes which assume the miniture form of
French plum-cases, richly embossed, with something round the edges
about as much in proportion to the box as eighteen insides are to a
small tax-cart. This testimonial is generally (as the engraved inscription
purports) given by "several gentlemen" (who are, unfortunately, in
these instances, always anonymous--which circumstance, as they are
invariably described as "admirers of talent," is much to be regretted,
and, we trust, will soon be rectified). We believe, like the immortal
Jack