"Whatever brawls disturb the streets, there should be peace at
home,"
so it might be expected that, however violently men may differ among
each other as to the shape, cut, or fashion of their clothes, they
would at all events, like a brood of chickens nestling under their
parent hen, concur together in selecting that description of warmth
which is congenial, and in avoiding every substance uncongenial to
their nature. And yet how true and how strange it is to say that of
the best educated, most scientific, most intelligent, and wealthiest
classes in England, more than three-quarters live and suffer, wither
and decay, in clothing as uncongenial to their nature as a covering of
slate, in substitution of their mother, would be to a nest of young
birds!
In a cold, wet, variable climate like England, where, especially in
winter, extra clothing to that granted to man by nature is absolutely
required, the sensible and self evident course for the Lord of Creation
to pursue would be to select from the living creatures around him, and
appropriate, the fur, feathers, wool, or hair that warm _them_.
And yet, instead of thus cherishing blood by what has especially
been created by Nature to warm blood, we repair to the cold ground
for succour! From its produce we pick cotton and hemp, nourished by
a circulation of _sap_; in short, from a mixture of perversity and
ignorance which appear to be as inexcusable as they are unaccountable,
we run for protection to the wrong kingdom, to commit the unnatural
error of clothing ourselves as vegetables instead of as animals!
If a man has had nothing to do in this world but, with a crown on his
head and with his knees closed, to sit very still on a throne,--with a
coronet balanced on his head, to walk very gently from one carpeted
room to another,--or in very tight boots to stand gaping at his fellow
creatures as, at different rates, they pass in procession before his
club window, he may live, die, and be screwed up in his coffin without
ever discovering the mistake he has committed; but, on the other
hand, if he has only for a few years been exposed to hard work, and
even without severe labour to the vicissitudes of climate, he very
soon finds out that he is suffering from the uncongenial clothing
in which he has been existing. Indeed, our soldiers and sailors on
active service, whether within the tropics or the polar regions; our
labourers, especially those who work underground in mines; in fact
all classes of people, sooner or later, are not only by medical men
admonished, but by the aches and pains of Caliban, with all the ills
which flesh is heir to when it has been suddenly chilled, are forced to
discard vegetable covering, in order to nestle, for the remainder of
their lives, in woollen clothing next to their skin; and when a man has
lived to make this important discovery, he keenly feels that although
his friend and neighbour would be grievously out of fashion were he to
walk about the world with his cotton drawers over his woollen trousers,
and with his Irish-linen shirt outside his coat, yet that it would be
less insane and infinitely more reasonable for him to do so than to
exist, as is still the general custom of the community, in vegetable
garments, covered on the outside with woollen clothing. In fact, it is
undeniable that a sinner doing penance in a hair shirt enjoys better
health than a saint in a lawn one.
For ordinary work only ordinary protection may be required; but as in
hunting the rider is exposed to every variety of weather, good, bad,
and indifferent,--to sunshine, cold, wind, rain, sleet, and snow,--to
a heating gallop, with a plunge into a brook, ending by a chilling
detention at every fresh covert which the hounds are drawing, it must
be obvious that to fortify himself against all these alternations,
he requires not merely the dress superficially prescribed, namely,
a scarlet coat, leather breeches, top boots, and a hat or a hunting
cap, but beneath this gaudy surface the most wholesome description of
underclothing that science can devise.
Now in the hunting field, experience, after a desperate struggle, has
at last demonstrated the advantages of wool; and, accordingly, for
some years it has been, and is, the habit and the fashion of most
men, especially "the fast ones," entirely to discard linen, and in
lieu thereof to ride in flannel shirts--pink, red, crimson, or many
coloured--and in drawers drawn either from the back of a lamb or a
sheep. The coats are lined throughout backs and sleeves with flannel;
and as the waistcoats have also sleeves of the same material, the
rider of the present day is not only wholesomely warmed, but his
clothing, from being divided into many layers, is capable of keeping
out a moderate shower of several hours' duration.
To provide, however, against a soaking day, it is usual to put on
woollen drawers of extra thickness; but as it is impossible to foretell
how long it will rain--for when it pours early in the morning, it not
unusually becomes bright at eleven, and vice versâ--this precaution
often proves not only unnecessary, but throughout the whole day a very
unpleasant incumbrance, which, after all, fortifies a great deal more
of the propria persona than is required.
A better plan, or "dodge," therefore, when the morning threatens to
turn into a drenching day, is to place over the thin drawers on the
surface only of each thigh, (which, from its position in riding, and
from the dripping from the brim of the hat, invariably becomes wet,
while all the rest of the drawers remain dry), a piece of stout serge
or saddler's flannel, which will keep out the rain for a long time;
which, when wet, can in a moment be drawn out, dried at any little
inn, farm, or cottage fire, and then replaced; and which, if, from the
cessation of the rain, it be not needed, instead of heating the owner,
can be rolled up and transferred into one of his coat pockets, to
remain there like a letter addressed Poste restante, "till called for."
Of boots there are just two sorts: those that do protect the mechanism
of the knee, and those that don't protect it. Of these, the latter are
the most fashionable. However, leaving the rider to make his choice, it
need only be observed that if the soles are broad, the feet within them
will be warm; and, if narrow, cold; simply from the circulation of the
blood having, by pressure, become impeded.
Chilblains are often the result, though more usually caused by the
mistaken luxury, as it is called, of putting the feet when chilled by
hunting into warm instead of into cold water, the temperature of which,
if possible, should be lowered in proportion to the coldness of the
feet: indeed, whenever flesh is frost-bitten, the well-known practical
remedy is snow; while on the other hand an approach to fire instantly
produces mortification.
And now for a very few words respecting the upper, or garret-story of
the rider.
In Leicestershire, many years ago, it was, and in Surrey it still is,
the fashion for "fast men" to ride in the hunting caps worn by all
huntsmen and whippers in.
They were invented to protect the head, whereas they have very properly
been discarded in the shires because they have proved to be its enemy,
or rather the enemy of the rider's neck, which is liable, on a very
slight fall, as was lately the case with poor Lord Waterford, to be
broken, literally on account of the protection given to the head by
the cap, which, instead of collapsing like the buffer of a railway
carriage, as a hat does when it is crushed by a fall, transfers to the
neck the whole concussion of the blow.
In all hunting hats a small hole should be made, either in the crown or
sides, to admit fresh air, and to allow the steam from a hot head to
escape, instead of heating the brain and injuring the hair.
As regards the latter, for the sake not only of our masculine, but
of our feminine readers (one of whose innumerable natural ornaments
is their hair), we will venture to point out another mistake which
is generally committed by our seeking assistance from the inanimate
instead of the animate portion of creation.
We all know that throughout our country, and indeed throughout the
world, there are exposed for sale two descriptions of oil; and as
one of them is compressed from vegetables, and the other obtained
from animals, without reflecting for a moment, it ought surely, at
once, to occur to everybody, that as all things were created good,
"according to their kind," vegetable oil would not prove to be "good"
for animal substances; and accordingly, every coachman and stable-man
concur in testifying, on their practical experience, that while
animal oil mollifies and preserves all descriptions of bridles and
harness, vegetable oil burns and destroys any leather it is applied
to, disfiguring as well as impairing it by deep cracks, crossing each
other like network (declared in Johnson's Dictionary to mean "anything
reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between
the intersections").
But just as the texture of linen is infinitely finer and more beautiful
than that of broadcloth or flannel, so is vegetable oil clearer and
more inodorous than animal oil, for which reasons the former, instead
of the latter, is almost invariably used by perfumers in concocting
what is sold by them as "hair oil," which, when extracted from almonds,
olives, or any other vegetable substance, is, although highly scented,
exactly as injurious to hair as it would be to harness; and thus it is
lamentable to observe young people blooming around us in all directions
becoming prematurely bald-headed, and older ones more or less
rheumatic, dyspeptic, &c., from having by their own acts and deeds,
namely, by rubbing their heads and clothing their bodies with the wrong
substances, foolishly deserted the animal kingdom to which they belong,
to go over to an alien, that, for the purposes for which they seek its
protection, is really their enemy.
+How to Eat and Drink for Hunting.+
When a young man "too tall for school," that is to say, who has just
concluded his studies, is on the point of what is called embarking in
life, it would be well for him if he would but pause for a few moments,
on the brink of his earthly career, to determine, not how he can avoid,
but on the contrary, which, out of the many alluring pleasures standing
in array before him, will afford him, when selected, the greatest and
most enduring enjoyments.
Now these pleasures, sensual, literary, and religious, may be compared
to the different qualifications in a large stud of horses, which, as we
all know, may be divided into three classes, namely--
1. Those that will carry their rider brilliantly for a short time, and
then, gradually failing, bring him early in the day to what, in the
hunting field, is termed "grief."
2. Those that will carry him well through three quarters of a good run,
and then give in.
3. Those which will not only carry him through any run, however severe
it may be, but end a happy day by bringing him gloriously to his long
home.
If this classification of the pleasures of this world be correct,
there can exist no doubt that it is the interest of every young person
to select from them those which, in intensity, increase instead of
diminish the longer they are enjoyed, and which in duration are
eternal, instead of being shorter than life.
Yet, supposing this wise selection to be made, it does not follow,
because one set of pleasures rank infinitely higher than others,
that the former should be exclusively pursued, and the latter wholly
abandoned.
On the contrary, as rest restores the strength of the body after hard
labour, so do pleasures of a lower order, if judiciously administered,
recruit the exhaustion caused by mental exertion.
Now, of all sensual pleasures, those of eating and drinking produce, as
we either use or abuse them, the most opposite results.
When a young man commences his career, the engine which is to propel
him throughout his life, is, his stomach.
If he preserves it, it will in return render him good service. If he
inconsiderately wears it out, whatever abilities he may possess become
to him of no avail. Indeed the Spanish proverb truly says that in man's
progress in the army, navy, law, church, or state, in short in every
profession, "it is the belly that lifts the feet."
But the same remark is applicable, not only to every profession, but
to all our amusements and recreations. A young horseman, therefore,
who wishes to enjoy the greatest possible amount of hunting, should
ensure it by taking the greatest possible care, not of his neck--not
even of his life, for, as has been shown, the less he interferes with
his horse in jumping, the safer he will go--but of his stomach, or in
other words, of his _health_. To attain this object he has no penance
whatever to perform, for, as he is undergoing strong exercise, his
system requires, is entitled to, and ought to be allowed ample support,
say a capital breakfast; a crust of sweet bread in the middle of the
day; and after hunting is over, a glass of pure cold water to bring
him home to a good, wholesome dinner, with three or four glasses of
super-excellent wine. Now if a young rider were to resolve to rough
it on, or as many of his companions would call it, to "stint himself"
to, the diet above described, he would sit down to every meal with
an appetite that nothing but healthy hunger can create; and thus,
even from the sensual gratification of eating and drinking, he would
derive the maximum of enjoyment, which would not only on the following
day exhilarate his spirits, and strengthen his body, but which, by
invigorating his nerves as well as his stomach, would maintain for
him, to old age, the best possible recreation to his intellectual
occupations, the manly exercise of hunting.
Instead, however, of subsisting on the healthy diet just described, the
ordinary practice of many hunting men is to add to what may be called
"Nature's prescription for the enjoyment of good health" the following
ingredients:--