- Young Woman's dress - 14th Century
Young Woman's dress - 14th Century - Young Gentleman of the 14th Century
Young Gentleman of the 14th Century - Young Gentleman Louis XIII period - 1625 - 1640
Young Gentleman Louis XIII period - 1625 - 1640 - Women's Costume during the Directory - 1795 - 1800
Women's Costume during the Directory - 1795 - 1800 - With a long loaf of bread
- William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth - William Harrison Ainsworth
William Harrison Ainsworth - William Cobbett
William Cobbett - Which way looks better
Which way looks better - Which of these girls looks ready to do her work
Do you understand what appropriateness means? It means wearing the suitable kind of clothing for every occasion. It is our duty to be as well dressed as possible, for our friends' sakes as well as for our own; but a well-dressed girl is never conspicuous. Clothes which would be appropriate in a large city for a reception might be very inappropriate in a small town. Our daily clothes should be adapted to our uses, whether in country or city. Would you wear your party dress for gardening or for tennis or skating? - Which arrangement of hair and bow do you think most appropriate for school wear
Which arrangement of hair and bow do you think most appropriate for school wear - What might happen some time if these were love-matches
- Washington Irving
Washington Irving - Walter Scott
Walter Scott - Vertical lines through the center of the costume make the figure appear thinner
Vertical lines through the center of the costume make the figure appear thinner - Two girls sewing
Two girls sewing - To bring a queen back to Paris
- Tie-back skirt
Tie-back skirt Late '7o's and Early '8o's The bustle remained an important feature after the panier effect had been discarded. The skirts were made severely plain and were pulled back by strings, so as to fit with extreme snugness in the front. At the back, however, they were drawn out over a bustle of such extent that the fashion plates of the late '70's now have the appearance of caricatures. - Thomas Noon Talfourd
Thomas Noon Talfourd - Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore - Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a British historian, satirical writer, essayist, translator, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher [Wikipedia] - Thomas Campbell
Thomas Campbell - Theodore S Hook
Theodore S Hook - The Tube
The Tube - The simple dress skirt and shirt waist
The simple dress skirt and shirt waist - The Sho
The instrument called Sho is blown with the mouth, and corresponds to the Chinese Cheng or Mouth Organ. The pipes are made of wood, with reed mouthpieces, and the notes are made by stopping the holes with the fingers. In some ways the construction is like that of a harmonium, but it is much more troublesome to play, and the performer, having to use his own breath to make the sounds, cannot sing at the same time. Unlike a harmonium also, it is difficult to keep in tune, and Miss Bird, a well-known traveller, tells of a concert at which the performer was obliged to be continually warming his instrument at a brazier of coals placed near. Some years ago a Japanese Commission was appointed to consider which of the national instruments were most suitable for use in schools; it rejected the Sho because its manufacture was troublesome and its tuning even worse. - The Savoy
The Savoy - The Restauraunt among the trees
- The Regent Canal at Maida Hill
The Regent Canal at Maida Hill - The Queens first council - Kensington Palace June 20 1837
Queen Victorias first council - Kensington Palace June 20 1837 The year 1837, except for the death of the old King and the accession of the young Queen, was a tolerably insignificant year. It was on June 20 that the King died. He was buried on the evening of July 9 at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor; on the 10th the Queen dissolved Parliament; on the 13th she went to Buckingham Palace; and on November 9 she visited the City, where they gave her a magnificent banquet, served in Guildhall at half past five, the Lord Mayor and City magnates humbly taking their modest meal at a lower table. - The Queen receiving the sacrament, after her coronation - Westminster Abbey, June 29, 1838
- The Pub
The Pub - The Physician
The Physician - The Party Promptly broke up
- The Old Tabard Inn, High Street, Southwark
The Old Tabard Inn, High Street, Southwark - The Old Bridge
The Old Bridge - The new bridge, with temporary underpinning
The new bridge, with temporary underpinning - The more practical gown of the Empire Period
The more practical gown of the Empire Period - The microscope reveals many things
The microscope reveals many things - The Man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo
- The Juruparis in casing
Of all the so-called musical instruments of the world, that known as the Juruparis, used by the Indians of the Rio Negro, seems to involve most misery to humanity in general. To women and girls the very sight of it means death in some form or other, usually by poison, and boys are strictly forbidden to see it until grown to manhood, and then only after a most severe preliminary course of fasting. The Juruparis is kept concealed in the bed of some stream far away in the gloomy forest, and wherever that river may wander, or however brightly its waters may sparkle in the sunny glades, no mortal who values his life may cool his parching lips with its freshness, or bathe his aching limbs in its clear depths. Only for solemn festivals is the Juruparis brought out by night and blown outside the place of meeting, and it is restored to its forest home immediately afterwards. The word Juruparis means 'demon,' and it is supposed that its mysteries date back to some pre-historic Indian tradition, as various tribes inhabiting the vast forests round the Amazon district practise weird ceremonies in honour of the demons. The Juruparis in casing. The Juruparis in casing. In form the Juruparis is a slender tube from four to five feet long, made from strips of palm wood. Close to the mouth is an oblong hole, and when the instrument is to be used a piece of curved Uaruma or Arrowroot wood is inserted into the opening, which is then nearly closed with wet clay. - The Infallible Remedy
TOOTHACHE is an universal plague. Every country has a special " nostrum " for its cure. China knows the plague, and China has a nostrum, which may well challenge all others for originality and efficacy. The quacks who in this case advance their specific are all women. I speak of them and their doings as I have seen and known them in the province of Chekeang. Whether they are found elsewhere in China I know not. The remedy they employ has never yet, to my knowledge, been published to the world ; and we must not feel sur-prised if, after this paper has once got abroad, a shipload of these charlatans should be sent for, and make their appearance " one fine morning," in the Thames. These female quacks maintain that the usual cause of toothache is a little worm or maggot, which has its nest in the gum under the root, and if this little offender can be driven or coaxed out, the gnawing pain will immediately cease. But how he is to be driven or coaxed out is the secret of their trade, the knowledge of which they confine most rigidly to those of their own profession. We had not been resident many years in the country before we heard talk of these women and their wonderful performances, and as my friend and I took our customary walks together, our con-versation not unfrequently turned their way. My friend stoutly maintained that it was all impos-ture ; it was impossible, he said, that maggots in the gums or teeth should have escaped the obser-vation of our dentists, who had examined hundreds of thousands, not merely of teeth, but of mouths for so many years. - The Incroyable of the Revolution Period - 1795
The Incroyable of the Revolution Period - 1795 "Incroyable" (incredible) was the sobriquet given to the fops or dandies of the later Revolutionary period. Here is the description of one of these remarkably dressed personages as given by the French writer, Honore de Balzac: The costume of his unknown presented an exact picture of the fashion which at that time called forth the caricatures of the Incroyables. Imagine a person muffled in a coat so short in front that there showed beneath five or six inches of the waistcoat and with skirts so long behind that they resembled a codfish tail, a term then commonly employed to designate them. An immense cravat formed round his neck such innumerable folds that the little head emerging from a labyrinth of muslin almost justified Captain Merle's kitchen simile. [Merle had described the Incroyable as looking "like a duck with its head protruding from a game pie."] The stranger wore tight breeches and boots a la Suwarrow; a huge white and blue cameo was stuck, as a pin, in his shirt. Two watch chains hung in parallel festoons at his waist, and his hair, hanging in corkscrew curls on each side of the face, almost hid his forehead. Finally, as a last touch of decoration, the collars of his shirt and his coat rose so high that his head presented the appearance of a bouquet in its paper wrappings. If there be added to these insignificant details, which formed a mass of disparities with no ensemble, the absurd contrast of his yellow breeches, his red waistcoat, his cinnamon brown coat, a faithful portrait will be given of the height of fashion at which dandies aimed at the beginning of the Consulate Preposterous as the costume was, it seemed to have been invented as a sort of touchstone of elegance to show that nothing can be too absurd for fashion to hallow it. - The Heart of the City
The Heart of the City - The Grecian Bend
The Grecian Bend , a feature of the late 70's - The Good Intent - Chelsea
The Good Intent - Chelsea - The Girl who represented Alsace
- The Fraserians
The Fraserians - The Forth Bridge
The Forth Bridge at the Present Day. Building the Bridge. Train crossing the Bridge. The mouth of the Forth has very nearly bitten Scotland in two, and anybody who wishes to travel from Edinburgh to Dunfermline would have to go a long way round if they objected to crossing the river. Formerly a great many people did object to this, because they knew that, although the voyage was only about a short mile, the great billows from the North Sea would meet them before it was over, and give them a very unpleasant time. So everybody who had anything to do with the Forth was willing that it should be spanned by a reliable bridge, and plans for carrying this into effect were frequently proposed. Indeed, arrangements were almost completed in 1879 for building a huge suspension bridge from shore to shore. The drawings were made, the estimates prepared, and the spades and trowels even beginning to work on the foundations, when, one sad December night, a terrible gale arose. All through the hours of darkness it roared and shrieked across the British Isles, working havoc upon sea and land, but, when morning came at last, few were prepared for the appalling catastrophe it had caused. Sweeping up the Firth of Tay, it had torn away a portion of the great railway bridge that crossed the inlet, and hurled it into the water. A train was passing over at the time, and plunged into the abyss with all its passengers. The terrible event shook public confidence, and we might almost say that the gale of that December night caught all the drawings and papers connected with the proposed suspension bridge over the Forth, and swept them from public favour. Immediately afterwards, Sir John Fowler and Mr. Benjamin Baker (both celebrated engineers) came forward with an alternative plan of which no one could doubt the strength. It may perhaps be described as an arch-suspension bridge, because the design includes the strength of both styles; but engineers themselves call it a cantilever bridge. - The flax wheel
The woman is holding the flax fibers which come from the distaff; and, as her foot[192] turns the wheel and the flax in her fingers is fed to the spindle, it is twisted. Spinning of flax is a very old invention. - The first Railway Journey in England
It was called the 'Locomotion.' George Stephenson stood ready to drive it as soon as the trucks, which a stationary engine was lowering down the slope by means of a wire rope, had been attached to it. In the first of these trucks came the Directors of the Railway Company and their friends, followed by twenty-one trucks (all open to the sky, like ordinary goods-trucks), loaded with various passengers, and finally six more waggons of coal. Such was the first train. A man on horseback, carrying a flag, having taken up his position in front of the 'Locomotion' to head the procession, the starting word was given, and with a hiss of steam, half drowned in the shouting of the crowd, the first railway journey ever made in England was begun. - The Extreme of the Crinoline - 1862
NO radical change in womens' costumes occurrred until the early fifties when what are known as the "Second Empire" styles were introduced. A remarkable feature of the fashions set by Eugenie, the consort of Napoleon III, was the enormous crinoline, of which we have more than once in recent years been threatened with a revival. The monstrous dimensions of women's skirts during the period from 1853 to the early seventies afforded an excellent theme for the pencil of the comic artist, and those who care to search the volumes of "Punch" and other illustrated publications of English and French origin, as well as those produced at the time in this country, will find both exact reproductions and caricatures of this style of costume. - The Duchess of Kent, with Princess Victoria at the age of two
The Duchess of Kent, with Princess Victoria at the age of two - The Diviner
The sapient-looking gentleman, is one of the supposed fortune-tellers in China. Their name is legion, and in these sketches a few of the more prominent characters of this class will be introduced. When the mind of man is not enlightened by science and revelation, experience teaches us that it is a prey to various foolish and degrading super-stitions. No wonder, then, that in a country like China, where science has made comparatively so little progress, and where revelation has scarcely yet diffused her faintest beams, superstitions of every kind should be rife. It is a genial cli-mate and a kindly soil, in which they spring up `rank` and luxuriant. The workings of natural laws are at best but partially understood. For example, the thunder, the fire, the earthquake, the eclipse, are supposed to be not so much subject to certain laws, as under the authority and control of some capricious deity. The ancestor or god of thunder, tray-tsoo, is worshipped with peculiar honours in the summer months, when storms are prevalent. Then crowds of earnest devotees besiege his shrine. The spirit of fire has innumerable votaries, who deprecate his wrath in the dry season of autumn. The earthquake is ascribed to the convulsive struggles of a huge tortoise to shift the earth from off his back. The eclipse is said to be caused by a voracious dog, in his attempts to swallow the orb of day. And though, with regard to the eclipse, there are some who know better, and if they cannot themselves explain the true reason, know that it has to do with fixed laws, and occurs at regular periods, noted in the imperial alma-nacks, yet the same excitement still prevails when-ever the phenomenon occurs : gongs are beaten, and crackers are fired from every house to frighten away the hungry beast. - The Concierge of each house stood continually at the front door
- The Collector of refuse hair
To what strange shifts and expedients are many driven by the hard pressures of life to earn the means of barely supporting existence ! Any one, who is acquainted with the lower phases of London life, is well aware that thousands scrape together a living out of the dust-heaps in Pad-dington. Some in rags, some in bones, some in street manure, some in scraps of tin and iron, find support for themselves and their families. Man is not responsible for his natural powers, nor is it any disgrace to be so deficient in intellect as to be obliged to follow a mean employment. No toil debases man save that which injures his moral character. Our picture presents to our notice one of the meanest of Chinese callings ; and in the refuse hair-gatherer, our artist has not failed to give you a specimen of humanity in one of its lowest forms. But even such a case as this is not without its interest. From the maker of wigs, false beards, and moustache, and from the worker in ornamental hair generally, such a calling may justly attract observation. Without the aid of the poor hair-gatherer, how should that fashionable young man, who, Absolom like, prides himself upon his hair, and yet unlike Absolom has but little of his own to boast of, appear in proper guise before his compeers in society ? How, again, shall the coy maiden find, unless by the same help, those magnificent "butter-flies' wings " * of glossy hair, which ornament the back of her head? But I have unwittingly anticipated : by this time the reader surmises the functions of our friend going his wearisome rounds with his light wicker-basket. He is either buying or begging all the refuse combings of the women's long black hair, which others, skilful in their art, make up into tails, either to supply a need which unfortunately may have arisen, or to increase the proportions of that which nature had too sparely bestowed. As you pass down a Chinese street, you will occasionally see a shop where were sold long switchy horse-tails ; such, at least, they long ap-peared to the writer of these sketches ; inquiry at last dissipated the delusion ; appearances answered to their proverbial deceitfulness, and these long-switch tails were formed of the refuse combings collected by our persevering friend, and hung in the shop ready to be braided into the usual queue worn by the men. - The clothing worn during the day should be aired at night
Airing clothing The body must be kept clean; and clothing worn next to it should also be kept clean at night as well as during the day. Who can remember how many pints of water the normal body gives off each day? It loses about three pints in 24 hours. Can you recall what becomes of this waste? Yes, some is evaporated, but some is collected by our clothes; that is why they are soiled as they collect the perspiration and excretions, although often they do not look soiled. The day garments should be hung up at night in a place where they will air and dry out by morning. - The Chelsea Arts Ball
The Chelsea Arts Ball - The Chateau Rouge
- The Centralia Conspiracy
The Centralia Conspiracy