First Owner of Prize Doglet: "These seaside places don't appeal to me the least little bit. But Ozoneville was recommended to give tone to Choo-choo's nerves. He's been suffering from severe shock through seeing two fearful mongrels have a fight in the park one day. Your little thingy-thing's off colour too?"

Second Owner of Prize Doglet: "Yes, a bit run down after the season. Sorry, but I really must hurry away. Band's beginning to play something of Balfe's, and I never allow Ming-ming to hear banal démodé music."

Paint and "Pekies"

Horse-play as an integral part of the modern idea of pleasure is satirized in 1910 in a series of suggestions for new "Side-shows" at Exhibitions, which should combine the maximum amount of motion, discomfort, and even danger to life and limb. The recrudescence of "beauty doctors" is noted by "Blanche" in the same year, and the increasing use of paint, not to repair the ravages of age, but to lend additional lustre to the bloom of youth, is faithfully recorded by Punch's artists in the decade before the war. Bridge – to which Punch had paid a negative homage on the ground that it kept the drawing-room ballad-monger and the parlour-tricksters at bay – had ousted whist, and in 1913 was threatened by "Coon-Can." On the cult of the "Peky-Peky" Punch spoke with two voices, for while he deprecated the infatuation of their owners, he was fully alive to the charm, the intelligence, and the courage of these picturesque little Orientals.

Extravagance invariably leads to reaction; but in this period the reactions were not always sincere – at least not among the "Smart Set." They intermittently played at being serious, but the motive generally savoured of materialism: they were more concerned with conserving their bodies than with saving their souls. It was an age of new and strange Diets and Cures and food-fads. Punch's "Health Seeker's Vade Mecum" in 1893 reflects modern pessimism and uncertainty. In 1904, in "Our Doctors," he recalls Mr. Gladstone's tribute to Sir Andrew Clark, but his appreciation and eulogy of medical worthies was a good deal discounted by his linking the names of Jenner and Gull with those of Morell Mackenzie and Robson Roose. Neurotics were now to be found in unexpected quarters. In 1899 Phil May has a picture of an admiral kept awake all night by a butterfly that went flopping about his room.

The movement for learning "First Aid" had already become fashionable – and to that extent futile – and in 1901, in "Courtship à la Galton," Punch mildly satirizes the creed of Eugenics, as illustrated by the union of two Galtonites, despising sentiment, but possessing diplomas of matrimonial fitness. Romance and Hygiene seldom go hand-in-hand. The "Simple Life" was another favourite cult and catchword; but its votaries were for the most part "affecting to seem unaffected."

Smart Simplicity

American visitors flooded London for the Coronation of 1902, and Punch makes good play with a statement in a weekly review that "the old-world simplicity of rural life is unique and has an unfailing charm for our Transatlantic visitors." This was and is true of the best of them, but Punch turned the announcement to legitimate ridicule in "Arcady, Ltd.," with its "faked" rusticity, carefully rehearsed and organized to cater for the taste of wealthy explorers. The cry of "Back to the Land" is illustrated in the futile efforts of fashionables pretending to assist in the harvest field: it is ironically commended in 1906 to exhausted débutantes as the best form of cure for the fatigues of the London season. The "Simple Life," as practised by well-to-do dyspeptics and the unindustrious rich, was in his view a complete fraud, for they were really preoccupied with the material side of existence. Hence the adoption of weird unknown foods and clothing. In 1910 "Blanche" gives us to understand that the craze for abstinence had even invaded the "Smart Set": —

A good many people are going in for the No-food cult, the Dick Flummerys among others. Indeed, dinners and suppers seem to be by way of becoming extinct functions. Dick says that till you've been without food for a week you don't know what you're really capable of. I don't think that would be a very reassuring thing to hear from anyone looking as wild and haggard as Dick does now, if one happened to be tête-à-tête with, him and some knives! Dotty tells me that, with their tiny house and small means, they find entertaining much easier now they belong to the No-food set. Their little rooms will hold twice as many no-fooders as ordinary people, she says, and then there's no expense of feeding 'em. No, indeed. At the Flummerys', when your partner asks, "What shall I get you?" he merely adds, "Hot or cold water?"

In general, however, these rigours were confined to intellectual or pseudo-intellectual coteries, of which a good representative is to be found in the hatless and sandalled youth depicted in May, 1912 – not unnaturally classed as a tramp by the old Highland shepherd – who evidently belongs to the type ingeniously described as that of the "Herbaceous Boarder." In 1913, in "a chronicle of Cures, with the Biography of a Survivor," Punch briefly traces the progress of fads in food, drink and hygiene in the past half-century. He begins with light sherry, goes on with Gladstone claret, deviates into the water cure, takes to whisky and soda, then to cocoa nibs, and winds up with paraffin. Simultaneously and successively the survivor abandons "prime cuts" for vegetarianism; relapses to carnivorous habits under the auspices of Salisbury (the apostle of half-cooked beef and hot-water) and Fletcher (who found salvation in chewing); then took to Plasmon with Eustace Miles, lactobacilline in accordance with the prescription of Metchnikoff, and finally developed into a full-blown disciple of osteopathy. The list is not by any means complete, for no mention is made of Dr. Haig or of China tea, or the uncooked vegetable cure. But it will serve as a rough survey of the romance and reality of modern dietetics.

When I said that smart people were more concerned with their bodies than their souls, this must not be taken to imply a complete disregard for the things of the spirit. We hear little in Punch of Spiritualism, but a certain amount about occultism. "Auras" and their colours and meanings were attracting attention in 1903, and in 1906 the "mascot" craze had reached such a pitch that Punch was moved to intervene. If, he contends, we must have mascots, they had better be duly examined and licensed. The "Smart Set," again, always anxious to advertise their worship of pleasure, were not immune from the denunciations of popular preachers. The fiery fulminations of Father Bernard Vaughan did not escape Punch's amused notice. In 1907 the results of this crusade are foreshadowed in a series of pictures in which the "Smart Set" are exhibited as converts to decorum, simplicity and sanity. They have taken to serious pursuits – part-singing and photography. They frequent cheap restaurants and, as motorists, develop an unfamiliar consideration for the foot passenger. The irony and scepticism underlying these forecasts is further shown in the burlesque "Wise Words on Wedlock" by "Father Vaughan Tupper," in the following year – a string of extracts from his "great sermon," in which worldly wisdom is mixed with sonorous platitudes.

Caste and "The Social Fetish"

While complaints of the decline of manners are constant, evidences frequently recur of the worship of "good form" and the efforts made to keep it up. In 1900 Punch pillories an advertisement which offered coaching to "strangers, colonials, Americans and foreigners on matters of high English etiquette and fashion"; but in the same year it requires a certain amount of reading between the lines to dissociate Punch from the sentiments expressed in the verses on Caste: —

"Kind hearts are more than coronets,"
I know this must of course be true;
It is the same old sun that sets
On high and low, that rises too.
What matters it for whom you buy
The ring of diamonds and pearls,
A maid whose birth is none too high,
Or daughter of a hundred earls?

If you're content that she should be —
Well, not exactly as you are,
The trifling difference in degree
May only very seldom jar.
Intolerance we should suppress,
An attribute of fools and churls,
Yet I prefer, I must confess,
The daughter of a hundred earls.

It may, perhaps, be fair to regard this as a piece of impersonation – a point of view – rather than an editorial pronouncement. Anyhow, Punch was perfectly sound in his ridicule of the aristocratic pseudo-Socialist who wished to have it both ways, and of the gullibility or snobbery of reporters who ministered to her vanity. Suburban pretensions to smartness are also chaffed in the picture of the mother rebuking her daughter for relapsing to "Pa" and "Ma" instead of calling her parents "Pater" and "Mater."

What Punch could not stand, and to his credit never had stood, was the inverted snobbery of those who professed to despise the privileges and the shibboleths of rank, while all the time they took the utmost pains to let you know that they belonged to the class which claimed those privileges and that they were incapable of violating its shibboleths. This old game, revived with considerable skill by Lady Grove in her treatise on The Social Fetish, in which great stress is laid on the test of pronunciation, was mercilessly exposed in its true colours by Punch in 1907. The article is an extremely workmanlike, polite, but damaging criticism of an odious but ancient habit – that of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Another old custom – the mutual abuse in public of politicians who were bosom friends in private – was revived with such gusto in these years as to elicit Punch's comment of "Pals before Party."

M.P.'s Wife: "I say, Archie, it's a shame to abuse poor Roddy as you did in your speech last night. After all, he's your best pal, although he is on the other side."

M.P.: "My dear girl, that's nothing to what he's going to say about me to-morrow. He's shown me his speech, and I'm jotting down a few additional epithets for him to stick in."

Though manners were in a state of flux, etiquette still survived. The orthodox horror felt by the smart man about town at anyone of his own class carrying a parcel in the streets was, if Punch is to be believed, still prevalent in 1908; the characteristic British avoidance of sentiment is illustrated a year later in the salutation, "Hallo! old man. How are you, and how are your people, and all that sort of silly rot?" Characteristic, again, of British understatement is the reply of a V.C. to the question, "Say, how did you get that el'gant little cross?" put to him by a fair American: "Oh, I dunno. Pullin' some silly rotter out of a hole." The change that had come over the relations between Society and professional actors, musicians and authors is shown in the picture of the long-haired genius who remarks, "And is this the first time you've met me, Duchess?" The Duchess is reduced to speechlessness, and takes refuge in a petrifying stare. That was in 1908, and the picture forms a good pendant to the affable Duchess of Du Maurier, who in a similar position had remarked: "You must really get someone to introduce you to me." Writing on the necessary attributes of a Lion of the Season in 1899, Punch placed an interesting personality first: literary lions were no longer popular, as most people now wrote books. Pursuing the inquiry farther, he gives special preference to travellers and athletes: —

Social Lions

Q. Then what is the best mode of becoming a Lion?

A. By discovering a new continent or suffering imprisonment amongst cannibals for five or six years.

Q. And what is the reward of such a time of misery?

A. A fortnight's fêting in Belgravia and Mayfair.

Q. Is this sufficient?

A. More than enough. The fawning of Society begins to pall after a week's experience of its cloying sweetness.

Q. Is there any celebrity other than literary or exploratory capable of securing the attention of Mrs. Leo Hunter and her colleagues?

A. Prowess in the cricket field is a recognized path to social success.

Q. And has not an amateur cricketer an advantage over other competitors for fashionable fame?

A. Yes; he can claim his days for matches and his nights for rest.

Q. From the tone of your last answer it would seem that you do not consider the lot of a Society Lion a happy one?

A. You are right; but the fêted one has the satisfaction of knowing that the fevered notoriety of a brief season is usually followed by the restful obscurity of a long lifetime.

It is enough, by way of explanation, to add that when Punch wrote, the names of Mr. Walter Savage Landor and M. de Rougemont were on every lip. Fifteen years later, actors, boxers and, above all, dancers, male and female, were the favourite quarry of social lion-hunters. There was nothing very new about this tendency: it was as old as ancient Athens and had its roots in the everlasting human love of variety, in the desire at all costs to escape from dullness and routine. In 1909 a girl at Bristol who attempted to commit suicide received eighteen offers of marriage, and the Daily Chronicle reported that Mme. Steinheil, on the mere suspicion of having murdered her husband, was receiving similar proposals every day. This was at a time when, according to the same journal, there were thousands of young women in Bristol with certificates of competency as teachers, wives, and scholars, many of whom could not find husbands. Punch enlarges on this theme with philosophical irony. Security and respectability were apt to be dreary and monotonous, and it must at least be lively to be married to a poisoner.

Turning back to the minor etiquette of Mode, we note that by 1903 evening dress was no longer insisted on in the more expensive seats at the theatres, though in 1906 the Lancet was alleged to have recommended evening dress as indicative of "tone" and conducive to hygiene. Punch had long before declaimed against the tyranny of paying "calls." In 1907 he alludes to the practice as obsolete, and suggests that ladies, instead of having "At Home" days, should be out on certain days, so as to give their friends a safe opportunity for leaving cards.

Punch had for many years ceased from criticizing the manners of medical students, which occupied so much of his attention fifty years earlier; the most serious of his comments on professional manners were excited by "ragging" amongst officers in the Army. The protest, which he printed in 1896, purported to come from the ranks, and is based on the assumption that leadership was impaired when officers forgot to be gentlemen. At the Universities, Punch was evidently concerned by the multiplication of prigs. Early in the new century Balliol was, as usual, singled out as the principal hot-bed for the propagation of this type, but Punch paid that college a remarkable if reluctant tribute. He enumerated all the different species of undergraduates to be found there; keen laborious Scots, Ruskinite road-builders, and converts to Buddhist, Gnostic and Agnostic theories; but admitted that if Balliol contained all the cranks, it also contained the coming men – the men who would count. That curious Balliol product which emerged about this time, the "intellectual 'blood,'" seems to have escaped Punch's notice. At the end of the last century he notes the invasion of schools by the bicycle, and speculates fantastically on its results. As a matter of fact, bikes were afterwards largely proscribed in public and private schools, and the ban has not even yet been wholly removed.

First Tourist: "Care to use these glasses?"

Second Tourist: "No, thanks. Seen it all on the cinema 't 'ome!"

An Appeal to Santa Claus

Fashion has many phases; and children's Christmas presents reflect the popular tastes of the moment. In 1908 Punch printed the appeal of a little girl to Santa Claus to help her to avoid getting as many as possible of the same presents. This last Christmas it had been "perfectly absurd" – an endless iteration of Peter Pan story books, Golliwogs and copies of Alice in Wonderland, illustrated by Rackham and other artists. The sacrilegious attempt to supersede Tenniel's classical designs naturally met with no sympathy from Punch, and, what is more to the point, did not prove a success.

Not a few of Punch's old social butts and pet aversions disappear at the end of the century – including the old "'Arry." One of 'Arry's last efforts was to rejoice over the defeat of women at Oxford, and another was to describe how he was teaching his "best girl" how to pedal. The "Twelve Labours of 'Arry," as depicted by Phil May in the Almanack for 1896, in which he is seen on the rink, the river, hunting, shooting, driving tandem, boxing, playing cricket, golfing, bicycling, etc., introduce a new type indistinguishable from the "new rich" in dress and deportment. The new type of tourist depicted in 1912 lacks the exuberance of the old, and his nil admirari attitude is attributed to the "educative" influence of the "pictures."

FASHION IN DRESS

From the very earliest times the evolution of dress has been governed by two contending principles – Protection and Decoration; and the student of "primitive culture" will find these principles asserting themselves even in our own highly sophisticated times. One need not be an expert in psycho-analysis to trace in modern fashions the survival of the primitive instinct of decoration or the conflict between the irrational and the rational selves which is writ large in the annals of Mode. Profoundly conscious of my own incompetence to deal adequately with this fascinating and momentous subject, I nevertheless venture to submit that Laxity is the outstanding feature or "note" of the period now under review. It is an ambiguous term, but none the less suitable on that account, for laxity in its original sense implies a looseness which conduces to comfort, while, in its later and ethical use, it stands for irregularity, extravagance and eccentricity. Both meanings are richly exemplified in the fashions which prevailed in the years 1892-1914; but it must be admitted that, on the score of a wise laxity, man was more "rational" than woman in endeavouring to reconcile the claims of comfort and adornment. Women's dress is far more various, interesting, amusing and even exciting, but on the principle that one should keep one's cake for the end, I prefer to begin with the mere bread-and-butter of male costume. Punch, as my readers may remember, had in his earlier days inveighed against the rigidity and discomfort of men's dress, the tyranny of the top-hat and the strangulation of tight-fitting collars. In middle age, we find him more of a stickler for propriety of costume. Thus in 1893 he describes, with affected amazement, the strange garb adopted by fashionable young men for their morning exercise in the Park between nine and eleven – a straw hat worn on the back of the head, an unbuttoned coat, no waistcoat and flannel trousers. Simultaneously one of his artists depicts the strange and casual attire of M.P.s in the House of Commons in August – tweeds and knickerbockers, sombreros, caps, and even blazers. Yet, with an inconsistency which did credit to his humane instincts, Punch, at the close of the same year, assails the high stiff collar worn by young men of fashion and refrains, in 1894, from any serious comment on an article in the Scotsman on the laxity of costume characteristic of modern Oxford. "Straw hats and brown boots appear to abound everywhere," while "bowlers" were gradually discarded. When the centenary of the top-hat arrived in 1897, Punch suggested that its abolition would be a suitable way of celebrating the year of Jubilee. But the "top-hat" had its defenders as well as detractors, and the "pros" and "cons" of the correspondence in The Times are admirably summed up in Punch's article: —

It would be advisable, or inadvisable, as the case may be, to abolish It in the Jubilee Year.

Because all the scarecrows in the country are already fitted.

Because It is the hall-mark of human dignity, and, combined with a smile, is sufficient by Itself, without any other costume, to stamp the wearer as one of Nature's Noblemen, whether he be a Missing Link or a King of the Cannibal Islands.

Because It is indispensable, as part of the stock-in-trade of conjurers, for the production of live rabbits, pots of flowers, interminable knotted handkerchiefs, and other useful and necessary articles.

Because no Harrow boy is happy till he gets It.

Because It is a decided protection in a street fight, or when you fall out hunting or coming home late from the Club.

Because It only needs to be carefully sat on to make an excellent and noiseless substitute for the concertina.

Because no self-respecting Guy, Bridegroom, or 'Bus-driver is ever seen without one.

Because It is a very effective counterpart of the Matinée hat at Lord's, and similar gatherings.

Because, to be at all in the fashion, and to look decently dressed, you require a fresh one every day. This is good for the trade.

Because It stimulates the manufacture of umbrellas, eye-glasses, hansom-cabs, frock-coats, hair-restorers, and forcible language.

Because no one has yet ventured to wear It on the all-prevalent bicycle.

Because no statue has ever had the face to sport It, with very few deplorable exceptions.

Because It is really the most becoming headgear hitherto devised.

Because It is really the most unbecoming headgear hitherto devised.

Because, after a hundred years, it is time we had a change.

Because, when a thing has been running for a century, it is a pity to abolish It.

Because, if It is abolished, the custom of raising It to ladies will perish as well, and there will follow the Extinction of Manners for Men, the Decadence of Church Parade, the General Cutting of Acquaintances, the re-introduction of Thumb-biting, Nose-pulling, Duelling, and Civil War, the disappearance of Great Britain as a first-class Power, the establishment of a Reign of Terror, and much inconvenience.

Because I have recently purchased an Extra Special Loyal and Up-to-Date Jubilee Tile, which I hope to wave, throw up, and generally smash and sacrifice on the Great Occasion.

But that is not another story.

Fashions in Hats

Punch had already referred to Its disuse on the cricket field. The mention of statues in top-hats is not an effort of imagination: Dr. Grigor, to whom Nairn owes so much of its popularity as a health resort, is thus attired in the stone effigy of him which stands in the centre of the town. The tall hat, though now seldom seen except at weddings and funerals, has survived its centenary; but new fashions in headgear date from 1897, when Punch's "Stifled Stockbroker" rejoices, when the thermometer stood at ninety in the shade, in the relief afforded by his Panama and Pyjamas.

The appearance of the Homburg Hat is chronicled in 1900, but not in a complimentary manner. "Bertie's new hat," according to a satirical young lady, "looks as though somebody had begun excavating to find his brains, and had given it up in despair." There was another heat wave this year, and Punch notices that straw hats were worn at Sandown, while the horses in Paris were "wearing straw bonnets to protect them from the heat," a practice adopted in subsequent years in London. The "boom" in sandals in 1901 belongs more to Hygiene than to Fashion, but, if Punch is to be believed, it was not confined to health cranks and children; and in the Sapphic stanza of Canning's "Needy Knife-grinder" he gives voice to the indignant protest of the London shoeblack. Another sartorial centenary, that of trousers, fell in the year 1902, but Punch's appeal to the poets to celebrate it in song remained unanswered. Meanwhile a young peer was credited by a society journal with the intention of forming a League in order to differentiate men's evening dress from that of a waiter, but Punch failed to see in the venture any sign of noblesse oblige. By 1902 the Panama Hat had been vulgarized by 'Appy 'Arry; and a year later Punch speaks of "the late Panamania." It had gone out of fashion in New York, being superseded by the ordinary stiff straw hat, and Punch anticipated that the "slump" would also cross the Atlantic.

Her Candid Sister: "Well, dear, I think it looks as though somebody had begun excavating to find his brains, and had given it up in despair."

Novelties v. Revivals

There is one grand distinction between men and women in regard to dress. Women (or those who dictate their fashions) are divided between novelties and revivals, and the revivals are generally of the most outrageous absurdities. It is otherwise with the simple male. He deals far less in revivals, and when he hits upon a good novelty he generally sticks to it. In this category I would unhesitatingly include the brown boot, to which Punch devoted the following instructive article, modelled on the style of the Daily Mail, in the year 1903: —

THE CULT OF THE BROWN BOOT

No serious student of dermatology can have avoided noticing the enormous increase in the use of brown boots in the last quarter of a century. In 1879 a clubman would no more have thought of walking down Pall Mall in brown boots than of flying. But now even archdeacons frequent the Athenæum Club in that ubiquitous footwear.

Necessity is probably the mother of invention, as Lord Avebury has pointedly remarked, and the introduction of the brown boot is due, according to a well-known Bond Street maker, to the exigencies of a retired General, who, finding it difficult to get his boots adequately blacked at his chambers, suggested, as a solution of his embarrassment, that it might be possible to devise a form of boot in which blacking could be entirely dispensed with. The example at once provoked imitation, and now it is estimated by Dr. Nicholson Roberts in the Bootman that in London alone 1,250,000 pairs of tawny-coloured footgear are sold in the year.

Boots, it may not be generally known, are made from the hides of various animals, terrestrial and marine. The skin is removed after the animal has been slaughtered, not before, and is then subjected to a variety of preliminary processes of a mollifying character, of which the most important is that of tanning. Tan, or tannin, as it is more correctly called, is a substance of a friable texture and a highly pronounced but hygienic odour. It is principally found in Indian tea, whence it is extracted by machinery especially designed for the purpose, and stored in tanyards. It is also occasionally used to deaden the sound of traffic and provide equestrians with a substratum calculated to minimize the wear and tear of their horses' hoofs. Dogs of certain breeds are also technically described as being "black and tan."

The process of bootmaking, of which the headquarters is at Northampton, will be familiar to all who have attended the performances of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger. It involves the use of powerful cutting instruments, cobbler's wax, needles, thread, and other implements, and the principal terms in its somewhat extensive terminology are vamp, welt, upper leathers, and nether sole. Bootmakers, like tailors, commonly sit cross-legged at their work, and hold pronounced political views; hence the term freebooter. But it has been noted that the makers of brown boots incline to Liberal Unionism. Their patron saint is Giordano Bruno, and in theology they affect latitudinarianism.

The term "brown boots," it should also be noted, is a misnomer, as it includes shades of yellow, orange, and russet. Army men affect the latter, while stockbrokers and solicitors prefer the former.

In conclusion it may be worth while to record certain established rules, the disregard of which may have untoward consequences. Black laces do not harmonize well with brown boots, nor is it de rigueur to wear them with a frock-coat, or when in evening or court dress.

The information here imparted must be accepted with certain reserves, and the same remark holds good of Punch's picture of Church Parade in 1906, where hatless "nuts" smoking pipes, wearing Panama hats, knickerbockers and even dressing-gowns, are shown mingling with more correctly attired pedestrians. But, allowing for exaggeration, the picture reflects a real tendency – towards greater comfort and less convention in dress. The "nut" depicted in 1907 wears a coat with a pronounced waist, and highly coloured hose, but in 1910 Punch descants lyrically on the announcement, made by the Daily Express, that "the reign of the passionate sock is over," though a man might "still let himself go in handkerchiefs." The poet ironically bewails the fiat which dooms our socks henceforth to silence: —

There is a power, my friends,
That disciplines our loud-hued nether ends.

Still, he consoles himself with the reflection that he still can wear his heart "up his sleeve," thus recalling the new definition of a gentleman given some years earlier in suburban circles as one who wore his handkerchief up his cuff.

Host: "How do you like the course?"

Visitor: "Well, I don't wish to appear ungrateful, but I should like to lie down!"

Passionate Socks and Knickerbockers

Owing to the increasing skimpiness of skirts and the cult of slimness, the approximation of male and female attire reached a point in 1911 which suggested to one of Punch's artists a new Sex Question puzzle. But while the female "nut" was becoming indistinguishable from the male, the male golfer had come to affect a bagginess of knickerbockers recalling the exuberance of the female cyclist of two decades earlier, and, as Punch showed, exceedingly ill-suited for progress in a high wind.

Throughout this period whiskers remained in disfavour with all men of fashion, though they lingered on among the elderly and the middle-aged. Pianists, artists and literary geniuses still wore their hair long. The value of a beard in correcting an imperfect profile was admirably illustrated in Du Maurier's picture of the complacent Admiral in 1894, and naval officers, then and now, availed themselves of a privilege denied to the other Service, without any loss of trimness and smartness of appearance. The "toothbrush" moustache dates back to pre-War days, and its popularity was not impaired when early in 1914 the General commanding the Prussian Guards Corps forbade its adoption as "not consonant with the German national character." Waxed ends to the moustache were now only worn by policemen, taxi-drivers and Labour leaders. But the outstanding feature of male coiffure during the latter part of this period was the adoption of the practice of liberally oiling or pomading the hair and brushing it right back over the head without any parting. Whence the practice came I do not know, but it became almost universal amongst "nuts," undergraduates and the senior boys at our public schools. Punch did not admire the fashion, but it must have been a gold mine to all dealers in bear's grease, brilliantine, Macassar's "incomparable oil," and all manner of unguents simple or synthetic.