and yet, instead of thus cherishing blood by what has especially been created by nature to warm blood, we repair to the cold ground for succour! from its produce we pick cotton and hemp, nourished by a circulation of sap; in short, from a mixture of perversity and ignorance which appear to be as inexcusable as they are unaccountable, we run for protection to the wrong kingdom, to commit the unnatural error of clothing ourselves as vegetables instead of as animals!
if a man has had nothing to do in this world but, with a crown on his head and with his knees closed, to sit very still on a throne,—with a coronet balanced on91 his head, to walk very gently from one carpeted room to another,—or in very tight boots to stand gaping at his fellow creatures as, at different rates, they pass in procession before his club window, he may live, die, and be screwed up in his coffin without ever discovering the mistake he has committed; but, on the other hand, if he has only for a few years been exposed to hard work, and even without severe labour to the vicissitudes of climate, he very soon finds out that he is suffering from the uncongenial clothing in which he has been existing. indeed, our soldiers and sailors on active service, whether within the tropics or the polar regions; our labourers, especially those who work underground in mines; in fact all classes of people, sooner or later, are not only by medical men admonished, but by the aches and pains of caliban, with all the ills which flesh is heir to when it has been suddenly chilled, are forced to discard vegetable covering, in order to nestle, for the remainder of their lives, in woollen clothing next to their skin; and when a man has lived to make this important discovery, he keenly feels that although his friend and neighbour would be grievously out of fashion were he to walk about the world with his cotton drawers over his woollen trousers, and with his irish-linen shirt outside his coat, yet that it would be less insane and infinitely more reasonable for him to do so92 than to exist, as is still the general custom of the community, in vegetable garments, covered on the outside with woollen clothing. in fact, it is undeniable that a sinner doing penance in a hair shirt enjoys better health than a saint in a lawn one.
now in the hunting field, experience, after a desperate struggle, has at last demonstrated the advantages of wool; and, accordingly, for some years it has been, and is, the habit and the fashion of most men, especially "the fast ones," entirely to discard linen, and in lieu thereof to ride in flannel shirts—pink, red, crimson, or many coloured—and in drawers drawn either from the back of a lamb or a sheep. the coats are lined throughout backs and sleeves with flannel; and as the waistcoats have also93 sleeves of the same material, the rider of the present day is not only wholesomely warmed, but his clothing, from being divided into many layers, is capable of keeping out a moderate shower of several hours' duration.
to provide, however, against a soaking day, it is usual to put on woollen drawers of extra thickness; but as it is impossible to foretell how long it will rain—for when it pours early in the morning, it not unusually becomes bright at eleven, and vice versâ—this precaution often proves not only unnecessary, but throughout the whole day a very unpleasant incumbrance, which, after all, fortifies a great deal more of the propria persona than is required.
a better plan, or "dodge," therefore, when the morning threatens to turn into a drenching day, is to place over the thin drawers on the surface only of each thigh, (which, from its position in riding, and from the dripping from the brim of the hat, invariably becomes wet, while all the rest of the drawers remain dry), a piece of stout serge or saddler's flannel, which will keep out the rain for a long time; which, when wet, can in a moment be drawn out, dried at any little inn, farm, or cottage fire, and then replaced; and which, if, from the cessation of the rain, it be not needed, instead of heating the owner, can be rolled up and transferred into one of his coat pockets, to remain there like a letter addressed poste restante, "till called for."
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of boots there are just two sorts: those that do protect the mechanism of the knee, and those that don't protect it. of these, the latter are the most fashionable. however, leaving the rider to make his choice, it need only be observed that if the soles are broad, the feet within them will be warm; and, if narrow, cold; simply from the circulation of the blood having, by pressure, become impeded.
chilblains are often the result, though more usually caused by the mistaken luxury, as it is called, of putting the feet when chilled by hunting into warm instead of into cold water, the temperature of which, if possible, should be lowered in proportion to the coldness of the feet: indeed, whenever flesh is frost-bitten, the well-known practical remedy is snow; while on the other hand an approach to fire instantly produces mortification.
and now for a very few words respecting the upper, or garret-story of the rider.
in leicestershire, many years ago, it was, and in surrey it still is, the fashion for "fast men" to ride in the hunting caps worn by all huntsmen and whippers in.
they were invented to protect the head, whereas they have very properly been discarded in the shires because they have proved to be its enemy, or rather the enemy of the rider's neck, which is liable, on a very slight fall, as was lately the case with poor lord waterford,95 to be broken, literally on account of the protection given to the head by the cap, which, instead of collapsing like the buffer of a railway carriage, as a hat does when it is crushed by a fall, transfers to the neck the whole concussion of the blow.
in all hunting hats a small hole should be made, either in the crown or sides, to admit fresh air, and to allow the steam from a hot head to escape, instead of heating the brain and injuring the hair.
as regards the latter, for the sake not only of our masculine, but of our feminine readers (one of whose innumerable natural ornaments is their hair), we will venture to point out another mistake which is generally committed by our seeking assistance from the inanimate instead of the animate portion of creation.
we all know that throughout our country, and indeed throughout the world, there are exposed for sale two descriptions of oil; and as one of them is compressed from vegetables, and the other obtained from animals, without reflecting for a moment, it ought surely, at once, to occur to everybody, that as all things were created good, "according to their kind," vegetable oil would not prove to be "good" for animal substances; and accordingly, every coachman and stable-man concur in testifying, on their practical experience, that while animal oil mollifies and preserves all descriptions of bridles96 and harness, vegetable oil burns and destroys any leather it is applied to, disfiguring as well as impairing it by deep cracks, crossing each other like network (declared in johnson's dictionary to mean "anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections").
but just as the texture of linen is infinitely finer and more beautiful than that of broadcloth or flannel, so is vegetable oil clearer and more inodorous than animal oil, for which reasons the former, instead of the latter, is almost invariably used by perfumers in concocting what is sold by them as "hair oil," which, when extracted from almonds, olives, or any other vegetable substance, is, although highly scented, exactly as injurious to hair as it would be to harness; and thus it is lamentable to observe young people blooming around us in all directions becoming prematurely bald-headed, and older ones more or less rheumatic, dyspeptic, &c., from having by their own acts and deeds, namely, by rubbing their heads and clothing their bodies with the wrong substances, foolishly deserted the animal kingdom to which they belong, to go over to an alien, that, for the purposes for which they seek its protection, is really their enemy.