similar places to those on civilians' clothes. Mr. P. W. Reynolds has
pointed out another, which is found in connection with a cord loop on
the collars of the officers of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry. This is a
survival of a fashion once universal in the British Infantry, though the
loop often consisted of half-inch lace instead of cord. The button was
originally on a turned-down collar, and previous to that was on the
coat, coming through a hole in the collar with a view to holding the
latter properly in place.
If officers and sergeants were seen together it would probably be
noticed that the former wear their sashes over the left shoulder, whilst
the latter wear theirs over the right. To this a single exception can,
however, be found. In the Twenty-ninth Foot the sergeants and officers
both wear their sashes over the left shoulder, and this custom has been
traced back to the battle of Culloden, where so many officers were slain
that the sergeants had to take their places.
The drummers of the Leicestershire Regiment on state occasions wear
tiger-skin aprons instead of the usual ones of pipeclayed leather. This
is connected, as is also their badge, with their services in India.
A point that is perhaps not generally known is that officers going on
voyages in hot climates are allowed to substitute the kamarband for the
mess waistcoat, various colours being adopted by various regiments.
We have seen the origin of the red coat so far as it affects the modern
army. Under these circumstances it is hardly necessary to say that it
is not intended to prevent the soldier from seeing his blood when he is
wounded, as has sometimes been suggested. It might be taken as acting
as a warning colour like that of the wasp or hornet, but we have also
noticed the way in which conspicuous dress is replaced by protectively
coloured uniforms when the soldiers are upon active service.
We cannot help mentioning, however, one case in which the ornamental
garb of peace proves useful to its wearer. We find in the animal kingdom
that, whatever may happen in modern times in our own case, the males
are as a rule the more brightly coloured, and we have come to call the
brilliant hues with which they are endowed "courtship colours." The
charm which our gallant soldiers seem to have for the fair sex surely
entitles us to reckon the gay uniforms of our Army as coming into the
category of "courtship colours."
XXVI
NAVAL UNIFORMS
SUPPOSED SURVIVALS--PETTICOATS AND WIDE BREECHES
If we had headed this chapter "survivals in naval dress," we should have
been in the historic predicament of the writer who took as his topic the
snakes of Iceland, and afterwards had to own that there were none. It
would be better, however, if we were to say that there are no survivals
of a strictly naval kind, as then we should be nearer the truth. There
are, of course, in the uniform of both officers and men, plenty of
survivals from civilian costume, such as we have spent much time in
describing. Though the crews of the galleys, which are the boats
reserved for the captain's use, had, in the case of the smart ships,
long been dressed in a uniform manner, the actual uniforms of the Navy
only date from a little before the year 1767.
The colours, blue and white, so tradition says, were due to an
inspiration which George II received, while the subject was under
discussion, on seeing the Duchess of Bedford riding in a new habit which
was of blue faced with white.
There are two points in the dress of the ordinary sailor which are
commonly supposed to be interesting survivals, and indeed they appear on
the surface to have all the makings of such. It has been thought that
the black silk handkerchief which a sailor wears round his neck was
first put on as mourning for the death of Nelson. The other matter is
the blue jean collar which covers the similar-shaped one which is made
of the same material as the sailor's jumper. This would no doubt have
protected its fellow from the grease of the pigtail which sailors wore
once; but Commander Robinson, who has gone into the question, says that
pigtails were discarded before the blue jean collar came into existence,
and at the same time tells us that black silk handkerchiefs were adopted
previous to the time of Nelson. It is not perhaps very widely known that
sailors at one time wore a kind of kilt or petticoat, and this no longer
ago than the year 1779.
Some thirty or forty years earlier there were in vogue loose slops like
the petticoat breeches of the reign of Charles II, and the collar of the
coat, which was open at the neck, turned back on to the shoulders.
The trousers, however, that are now adopted are tight round the body and
thighs, but remain very loose round the legs, and are therefore somewhat
curious. The method of buttoning is one which they share with the
gentlemen of George II's time, the old-fashioned labourer, and, we
believe, the bishop.
XXVII
THE COSTUME OF PUPPETS
PUNCH AND JUDY--FASHION DOLLS--DOLLS IN SWADDLING CLOTHES--THE EGYPTIAN
"SHABBIES"
By way of a change let us turn from people to their images--in fact, to
puppets and dolls--for these semblances and caricatures of human forms
are generally clothed, and at times may present to us very curious
survivals. Let us begin with Punch and Judy, and in this connection we
must not forget the dog Toby, for the ruff which he wears round his neck
is a reminiscence of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Punch himself, however, is
very much older than his clothes, though to find the explanation of the
hump in front we must examine the clothes of the time of Henry III of
France, when the men's busked doublets came down low to a strap-shaped
point, and had a great padded punch-like protuberance.[37]
For other peculiarities that we see we may have to go to the times of
Henry IV of France, but the character is very many centuries older; and
the careful investigations made by a friend of the present writer, Mr.
George Heppel,[38] into the history of Punch have shown why his present
costume was adopted and what was his prototype.
As might be expected, the original Punch was a man--not Pontius Pilate,
as has sometimes been suggested owing to the connection of Punch with
miracle plays, but a character in the old Italian farces, which go
back to the early days of Rome. The town most celebrated for such
entertainments was Atella, situated not very far from Naples. The
farcical plays were full of buffoonery, and Punch or Pulicinella was one
of the stock characters, represented by a live actor, as were also the
originals of the Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Scaramouch, among others.
It appears that the plays were not written as we understand a play to be
written, but as a rule the plot of them was known, and a great deal of
the dialogue was left to the actors themselves. From this it will be
seen that the art of gagging can hardly be considered to be modern. The
Italian, though by no means great as a dramatic author, was, as he is
now, exceedingly good as an actor. It is said[39] that for genuine fun
no dramatist can beat the Neapolitan, no actor can surpass him. He
writes or acts without the least effort; it is born in him, and he
cannot help it. The very beggar-boy who hunts one along the street is a
consummate actor; his gestures are prolific, easy, and natural; he is a
facial artist without knowing it, and he has a power of elocution and
expression which are only acquired by experienced performers after many
years of study.
It may perhaps come as a surprise to many, seeing how long Punch has
persisted, to learn that in Italy he was not one of the important
characters in the original plays, but his choice as the hero of the
puppet-show depended rather on the fact that he had not so much to do as
some of the others--the harlequin, for instance. Therefore his character
could be better portrayed under the restricted conditions that prevailed
in such an entertainment as the Punch and Judy show. It will be obvious
also that only two characters can be acting at one time, as the showman
has only two hands. Mr. Heppel could only trace one instance of Punch
figures being worked by wires like other marionettes. This is a figure
in a little book no larger than a playing-card, entitled "Scènes de
Polichinelle," in the Art Library at the South Kensington Museum.
The showman in the case of the French Punch on occasion makes a virtue
of necessity, and when the hero of the puppet-show is about to be tried
for murder, the performance is interrupted in order that the following
apology may be made:--"The scene which we are about to have the honour
to put before you requires a tolerably large number of characters. It
is, indeed, impossible to suppose that so important a prisoner as
Guignol should be tried without due ceremony and by a single judge, but
as the director of this theatre, like the generality of mankind, has
but two hands, the actors in this scene will most of them remain quite
still. This need not in the least interfere with the truth of the
representation, for this stillness gives the administration of justice
an additional solemnity. We may suppose that the judges are asleep,
which will enable them to decide free from passion, and that the
officials of the court are paralysed by the majesty of the court and the
magnitude of the issues to be determined."
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--The Oscan Pulicinella of 1731, without a long
nose. The dress is very similar to that figured in 1630 (after
Riccoboni).]
The Punch and Judy show went on in Italy side by side with the farces
that were represented by living actors, but the idea of puppet-shows is
very much more ancient than this.
The clothes of Punch were plain, and illustrations made in 1630 are
similar to others made a hundred years later (see Figures 149 and 150).
[Illustration: FIG. 150.--The Calabrian Giangurgolo of 1731, with the
long nose. The dress is very similar to that figured in 1630 (after
Riccoboni).]
Originally, also, Punch does not seem to have had a long nose. The
exaggerated nose is, however, found on the representative of Punch which
flourished in Calabria, and which went by the name of "Giangurgolo" (see
Figure 150).
The French Punch is called Guignol, of which the derivation cannot be
directly traced, but Mr. Heppel has made an interesting suggestion that
in the name of this character is to be found that of Giangurgolo in a
contracted form.
As may have been surmised, we got our Punch and Judy by way of France,
but as a human actor Punch himself came direct to England.
[Illustration: FIG. 151.--An ancient bronze statuette with the face and
features of Punch (after Ficorroni).]
An ancient statuette which is figured by Ficorroni (see Figure 151) is
supposed by antiquarians to represent Punch, and if the individual whom
it represents did not go by that name, he must certainly have been one
of Punch's ancestors, for the likeness to our modern hero is exceedingly
great. References are made by a number of classical authors to
puppet-shows, and these were also known in China as long ago as a
thousand years before the Christian era.
[Illustration: FIG. 152.--A fourteenth-century puppet-show (from the MS.
of the "Roman d'Alexandre").]
The method also of exhibiting the puppets is not very modern, for a very
interesting figure of a show embellishes the celebrated MS. of the
"Roman d'Alexandre" (see Figure 152) which is preserved in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford, and was executed between the years 1338 and 1344. The
figures were evidently worked by the hands as in Punch and Judy, and
that it was intended to amuse children is shown by three little girls
who are represented as looking on.
Though sticks are not strictly a part of dress, unless we consider the
canes of the dandies as being so, yet their usefulness in puppet-shows
is so great that we are tempted to digress for a moment to give the
comments of M. Lemercier de Neuville on the subject:--
"The stick! that is the great argument of Guignol, as well as of
Polichinelle. The stick settles everything. It puts an end to disputes,
it pays debts, it sends away troublesome people, it disciplines wives,
it takes vengeance on men, it is the 'Deus ex machina' of all this
Lilliputian world. What a marvellous dramatic resource it is. If a
situation becomes difficult to manage, settle it with a blow of the
stick. If a _dénouement_ seems to hang fire, hasten its progress by
a thrashing. The stick is above all criticism; it checkmates it, it
destroys it, for it is in the right, in spite of everybody, because it
is the strongest. The stick has no respect of persons. With it Guignol
beats his creditors, his friends, his wife, the constable, the judge,
the hangman, and the more he strikes the more he makes people laugh.
There is no spoken joke that is as good as this. And yet the stick is
not beautiful, nor is it new. One sees that it has done duty for a long
time, for it is worn out and cracked."
We have, in fact, a record of Italian players coming to act their farces
in this country in 1577, but as Punch in the capacity of a person is
now obsolete with us, we shall only incidentally refer to him as a
living actor, though perhaps we might recall the fact that Molière
introduced him into his play _Le Malade Imaginaire_.
We have spoken already of Punch's hump in front, and it may be
interesting in this connection to give the opinion of a Frenchman on
the subject of Punch's bodily characteristics. M. Magnin says that with
a sufficient amount of exaggeration and caricature to set aside the
suspicion of disloyalty, the Punch figure recalls the appearance of some
Gascon officer imitating the walk and demeanour of Henri IV in the Guard
Chamber of St. Germain or in the Louvre. The hump in front, he says, was
derived from the protuberance of the heavy cuirass. This is much the
same explanation as that which we have already given, though the cuirass
probably stuck out in front of its wearer even more than did the
doublet.
There is no doubt but that the French like gayer dresses than the
Italians, and we have seen that even in 1630 the clothes of Harlequin,
Pantaloon, and Scaramouch in Italy were, like those of Punch, plain
and simple; but in order to be popular in France the Pulicinella had
to dress in a new style, and it is known that already in 1649 the
puppet-show of which he is the hero had set up on the left bank of the
Seine, opposite the Louvre. When Punch got to England it was at a time
when gay clothes were worn, and some relics of these he has retained to
the present day.
Red and yellow play a considerable part in the dress of the Punch
figures used by Mr. W. H. Jesson, the members of whose family have for
generations been performers of Punch and Judy, and who is one of the few
that are still left. Punch has a very high cap of antique appearance,
with turned-up brim and a bow of ribbon on the top. The hump on his back
is almost horn-like, and forms a complete circle. It seems unlikely
that this appendage was developed from any part of costume unless
it were perhaps the liripipe; but we may rather imagine that in the
past Pulicinella may have been represented as being a hunchback, and
certainly Figure 151, taken from the statuette mentioned previously,
suggests an individual suffering from such a deformity.
Punch also wears a ruff (see Figure 153), though it is not a separate
part of his costume, as in Judy's case, where it is of lace and its
character is well shown, as it consists of more than one thickness.
Judy's head-dress is the mob cap which was fashionable in the time of
George III. (See Figure 154.)
The beadle, with his three-cornered hat and his brightly trimmed coat
and cape, has survived for a century or so after his clothes first
became fashionable, and no doubt in the puppet-show he will persist for
many years when every living representative of his kind has passed away.
(See Figure 155.) Of two more characters we have a word to say,--in
the first place, of the doctor, who is brought before us in clothes of
almost clerical cut, which remind us of the fact that the members of the
medical profession were once more easily recognized by their dress
than they are now (see Figure 156); in the second, of Toby, whose sole
costume consists of a ruff, that once more takes us back to the time of
Good Queen Bess.
[Illustration: FIG. 153.--Punch, from the Punch and Judy Show, showing
the ruff and other details of Elizabethan costume.]
[Illustration: FIG. 154.--Judy, from the Punch and Judy Show, with ruff,
mob cap, and apron.]
Though Punch has donned new clothes and altered his habits to suit not
only the countries in which he sojourned, but the times in which he has
performed, yet despite these and other changes that have gone on since
he set foot on these islands, there is one thing that has always been
his special characteristic. This is his squeaky voice, which he retained
even in Molière's play, and it is from the peculiarity of his voice that
he gained his name. Pulicinella means a "hen-chicken," which might well
be expected to have a squeaky voice.
[Illustration: FIG. 155.--The Beadle, from the Punch and Judy Show.]
[Illustration: FIG. 156.--The Doctor, from the Punch and Judy Show, with
wig and white tie.]
With regard to the changes in Punch's behaviour we have a word to say.
Originally he was somewhat of a composite character, the constituent
elements being derived from several of the personages of the larger
theatre. At first, to the amorous and intriguing ways of Pulicinella
there was added the roguery of Scaramouch, as well as the dash and
braggadocio of the Spanish captain who was a member of the comedy
company, akin to the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus and the Bobadil of Ben
Jonson.
As time went on there was less love-making and trickery and more
knocking about, but Mr. Heppel will not allow that the French writers
are right in ascribing the whole of this to English influence. For the
fact that the puppets are not alive gives an opportunity for dealing
blows with a reality that could not be tolerated if the actors were
living, and when we remember the way in which dog Toby seizes Punch by
the nose, we cannot help feeling that the effect could hardly be so
realistically produced on the actual stage.
In France, Punch is a bachelor, or if he is married he is not very much
married, while in England Punch always runs in double harness. Another
alteration has taken place. Polly, who was one of the characters that
have disappeared, has departed for the reasons put into the showman's
mouth by Mr. Henry Mayhew in 1861. "Miss Polly was left out, because it
wasn't exactly moral. Opinions has changed. We ain't better, I fancy.
Such things goes on, but people don't like to let it be seen now; that's
the difference. Judy's dress, you see, is far different, bless you, than
Miss Polly's. Judy's, you see, is bed-furniture stuff, and Polly's is
all silk and satin. Yes, that's the way of the world; the wife comes off
second best."
As in old times, there was much buffoonery introduced even into
religious plays, and the characters which have been separated from the
other performers to take part in the special harlequinade of the modern
pantomime used, together with Punch, to appear side by side with those
who took the part of religious personages. To uneducated people there
seemed nothing profane about this; but as time went on men and women
came to look at matters in a different light. For reasons somewhat
similar, the devil and the ghost are now left out, and in the
performances that are given in drawing-rooms even the coffin, in some
cases.
The connection, however, of Punch with religious plays probably accounts
for the name by which his wife now goes. Those who mistakenly supposed
that the word Punch was derived from Pontius Pilate looked upon Judy as
representing Judas Iscariot. We have already pointed out the origin of
the former appellation, which ante-dates the Christian era, while a
difficulty is met with in the fact that the wife of Punch for many years
was known as Joan. Mr. Heppel says that of the miracle plays some of the
most popular were taken from the Apocrypha, and a very favourite subject
was the tale of Judith and Holofernes. If we cannot find an instance
recorded of Punch furnishing the amusement in this story, we can, at
any rate, find an advertisement of a play in which Harlequin and Judith
were together, and the comic business was sometimes entrusted to Punch
and sometimes to Harlequin. Hence Punch and Judy may not improbably have
come from Punch and Judith, while Toby naturally suggests the dog in the
book of Tobit.
With regard to Toby, it may be said that he is represented in France
by a cat, and that until the nineteenth century he was only a stuffed
figure. In China, where Punch beats his wife to the music of the
clarionette instead of Pandæan pipes held in a muffler, Toby is replaced
by a wooden dragon with jaws that snap, and this figure is also now
introduced in England. Hector the horse has quite disappeared. We might
mention here that in the English version a clown is brought in with very
considerable effect.
There is another connection of dolls with costume rather than of costume
with dolls which we may mention at this point. In the fourteenth
century, when there were no fashion plates, and written descriptions
would hardly do their duty effectively, model costumes were put upon
dolls and sent from country to country. It is, moreover, a curious and
interesting fact that it was principally from Paris that these fashions
were sent out.
Examples of national costumes sometimes survive on the bodies of dolls.
The figure of St. Nicholas, in Belgium, shows an old dress, and the
costume dolls of Holland, France, and Switzerland are excellent records
of native dress now seldom seen in everyday life. Mr. Edward Lovett
bought a little doll in Lucerne which is in a cradle, and shows
excellently well the swaddling clothes that were formerly in use.
Ancient Greek and Roman dolls, taken from children's graves, were
similarly dressed, and a modern Russian doll, which is also in
possession of Mr. Lovett, is shown with the swathing band _in situ_. The
only dolls that are to be found in Malta represent ancient saints, and
it is said that they are dressed as such.
The long garments of Noah and his sons in the toy Noah's Ark are worthy
of mention and are an interesting survival.
The wrappings that were placed round mummies in ancient Egypt are shown
on figures which were found in the tombs, and which are often seen as
curiosities in this country. They were carved out of wood or modelled
out of clay, while some of them were made out of the well-known glazed
faïence. They were put into the tombs in order that they might do the
work of the deceased in his after life, and their origin is exceedingly
interesting. Many barbarous nations have in the past sacrificed the
servants of a chief at his funeral, and the Egyptians, who were humane
people, contented themselves with a make-believe, and replaced the
actual persons with the figures that we call "ushabti," or, in modern
parlance, "shabbies."
XXVIII
THE CLOWN AND PAINTING THE BODY
THE CLOWN'S DRESS--SAVAGE PAINTING AND SURVIVALS OF
IT--TATTOOING--PATCHES AND FALSE COMPLEXIONS--MASKS
No costume is perhaps more characteristic or better known than that
of the clown; and it is of special interest, for while the hat was
fashionable at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the dress,
generally speaking, is a caricature of that which was in vogue in
the time of Queen Elizabeth. The same remarks apply to the method of
hair-dressing, and we shall see, when dealing with the other characters
that appear in the harlequinade, that the pantaloon in his dress
illustrates that of the same time in our history.
Unlike the other heroes of the pantomime, the clown is essentially
English, and he is to be found also in the circus of to-day, at all
times of the year, as well as on the stage at Christmas.