FASHIONS FOR VOLUNTEERS.
ARTISTS of real tact as well as distinction are discussing the not unimportant question, how to dress the volunteer. They only ..se4n) to forget the sage precept of the immortal artist, as the pre- . liminary to dressing, "first catch your hare " ; for this discussion
is by no means useless. It tends to promote the practical object of catching your volunteer. The essentials of a volunteer dress are that it should be commodious, effective, inexpensive, and smart; and that all these conditions can easily be united in one uniform, the discussion has already shown. First, as to the minimum of visibility, it is pretty well agreed that the hue should
- be a neutral tint, the present debate being whether it shall be - brown or grey. Rifle green is voted old fashioned, and positively conspicuous except in the midst of vegetation. Brown is with some the favoured colour, as being less brilliant than grey and a more frequent tint for inert objects. There is some truth in this description; but brown is more positive than its rival, is more conspicuous per se, and has more body in it than grey. Grey is 'the colour of the atmosphere, of interstices in the landscape, of slate and many stones : it is more identified with the inert than brown ; it is the favourite uniform of nothing. Add to this, that brown, of inferior quality, is often an uglier tint, commonly wear- ing to a more dingy tone, and the desired smartness lies on the side of grey. Inexpensiveness is a question of wear as well as of limited outlay ; commodiousness may well be combined with the picturesque ; and both cheapness and convenience will be attained if the costume be one which can in the main be worn habitually by those that please. Lord Elcho advances a good stride towards this achievement in making a grand attack upon trousers, with ,a suggested substitute. "1 would recommend as a substitute what are commonly known as knickerbockers,' e., long loose breeches which are generally worn with- out hmces, and buckled or buttoned round the waist and knee, and which are now in almost universal use among the sportsmen and deerstalkers of the Highlands of Scotland, who have to undergo great fatigue, and to 'idiom the utmost freedom of limb is essential. It is from having had eleven -years' experience of the great advantages of this description of dress that I am induced to urge its adoption, as I am confident it is the only fitting dress for a foot soldier, whose efficiency it would greatly increase. Trousers have no doubt their advantages,—they are easily put on, and it does not much matter what shape a man's legs are when thus encased ; but, to a sportsman who has once experienced the ease and freedom of kicker- bookers ' or the kilt, they are simply intolerable. I speak not of the minor evils of braces breaking and buttons giving way, but of the constant drag on the knee in walking, more especially up hill, which is increased a hundred- fold by the mass of useless, muddy, !edging drapery which the unfortunate Sportsman in trousers is doomed to carry about his alleles whenever he finds himself in wet turnips, bog, or heather."
• But everything that can be said against the trousers for pedes- trian uses tells against the ordinary use of that burlesque on a double umbrella-ease for the muddy streets and muddy roads of -these free but damp islands. Let not the reader imagine that the knickerbocker is neeessaiily nothing batter than "knee-breeches," .
that Georgian abomination in its ugliest out; neither needs it be a Dutch burlesque on easy costume. While, as Lord Eloho says, the kilt was the dress of the Greeks of Xenophon and the Romans of Caner—though the Romans, by the way, also wore something very like the trews which preceded the kilt in the Scottish High- lands—the "knickerbocker was the dress of the famous in- fantry of Spain, while the Zouaves and the Chasseurs de Vin- cennes, the corps d'ilite of Napoleon Ill., are clad in somewhat similar garments,"—only not so good. The proposed dress is by no means new to us ; and it may be made in such fashion as to be at once comfortable, quiet, picturesque, and gentlemanly. The upper part is formed of a plain waistband, straight round the waist ; the legs are so cut as to widen till they reach a little be- low the knee ; the width then contracts, until it is not larger than an easy garter : the end is drawn up, fastened just under the knee, and the widest part hangs over. The general effect is not unlike that of any easy skirt or kilt ; only there is all the comfort and convenience of an easy pair of trousers—without the mud. And as to the leg, good, bad, or indifferent, a tall boot, or a well cut legging, completes the encasement, with a soldierly and not uncomely effect. To very many persons the consideration of expense would be materially, abated, if the regulation costume could be worn .1- ways; and why not! Put an easy sitting doublet over these Spanish trunks, and you would have a tout-ensemble not exces- sively different from the present style, and well exemplified in the leader of our Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell, no fop, but a good soldier, and "a practical man, sir." Any difference is in favour of the picturesque, and of that "dress reform" which many have attempted, in vain. Artists have designed more pleasing coats ; a great living intellect did not scorn to ponder, and even to consult, if we remember rightly, an accomplished and lamented young Member of Parliament, about a more suit- able hat, than that to which we have been faithful since its gene- ral form was fixed somewhere about Queen Elizabeth's time. But changes like that from peace to war facilitate such reforms,— for war always has its millinery. The last war bequeathed to us " Hessians," "Bluchers," " Wellingtons," frock coat, and trou- sers; the new war may perchance displace the "old fogies" of the wardrobe. Some imagine, indeed, that individual influence is quite extinct ; " gentlemen " now-a-days, are ashamed to be caught thinking of such things ; the ambition to be a Petersham has gone, and persons who aspire to be oomme il faut leave such affairs to their tailor. Hence the tendency which has crept over the British gentleman to be dressed in clothes "cut easily"—for the tailor; made to fit—when the gentleman is bolt upright ; and looking like slop clothing. But clothing loose about the hands yet tight at the shoulders,—hanging slack, yet dragging when you bend,—will not suit the soldier. Nor have we been entirely without reforms once thought impracticable. "The moustache movement," Marto favente, has extended to the whole beard ; a most admirable Queen and wife abolished the unseemly manu- factured" fronts" with which ladies strove to hide their gentle grey ; and many variations in dress have been licensed where once society exacted a rigid uniformity. Dress reform, in feet, seems to have taken the place of the old emcees in "setting the fashion." Why does not Lord Eloho complete the service he has initiated, by bringing into use the costume he has worn already, and teaching the young idea not to blush at adopting " Elchoes" as a permanent improvement on the na- tional costume ?
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