SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this Heading we notice ouch B..o::s of the week as hags not Leen reserved Al- review be other jorals.] and Co. 25s. net.)—This very handsome volume reflects no little honour on the compiler, whose skill and industry are beyond praise,riend, wee may add, on. the " Royal .13.egtiwnV.:t ivhich has given him such loyal support. The earliest dress given belongs to the year 1642. It has no armour. Later on, however, we find half-armour. A suit of "silk armour" (armour covered with silk) includes a head-piece, cuirass, and covering for the left arm. " Harquebuss " armour covered the body down to the knees. An Artilleryman circa 1702-1714 wears a cuirass. Before the middle of the century it has disappeared. Changes, indeed, were frequent,—indeed, they are not unknov. n now. Nowhere, perhaps, has fashion been so imperious and so fickle as in soldiers' dress. A whole volume, for instance, might be written about the changes that have taken place in the wearing of the hair. At one time wigs were common. Towards 1760 they began to diminish. Then the natural hair was worn, but it was worn long, leaving, of course, something to be supple- mented by art. Pigtails of huge size were the rule. In 1804 it was ordered that they should be not more than 7 in. in length. Four years later some heroic reformer induced the authorities to abolish the queue altogether. The order was countermanded, it is true, the next day, but the reaction came too late ; the queues were gone. The dress in the latter half of the eighteenth century was scarcely businesslike, but it was distinctly picturesque. The nineteenth century brought a change for the worse in this respect. The drivers, indeed, were more or leas sensibly clad, though their head-gear was absurd. After the end of the Napoleonic wars there was a curious tendency to French modes. An Artilleryman of 1823 might have come direct from Paris. Perhaps the nadir in taste and utility was reached in 1823, unless a lower deep was attained in 1840, when the light- blue trousers had been exchanged for white. " The ugliest and most unserviceable uniform ever invented by man" is Captain Macdonald's judgment on these efforts of the military tailor's art. It must be conceded that the present modes are fairly satisfactory. But why these unending changes ? There have been four since 1897.
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