Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
In the matter of costume only, every different district presents him in
a different shape. In the counties round London, eastward and westward,
through Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, etc., he is the _white-slopped_
man of the London prints, with a longish, rosy-cheeked face, and a
stupid, quiet manner. In Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and in that
direction, he sports his _olive-green_ slop, and his wide-awake, larking
hat, bit-o'-blood, or whatever else the hatters call those
round-crowned, turned-up-brimmed felts of eighteen-pence or two
shillings cost, which have of late years so wonderfully taken the fancy
of the country-chaps. In the Midland counties, especially
Leicestershire, Derby, Nottingham, Warwick, and Staffordshire, he dons a
_blue-slop_, called the Newark frock, which is finely gathered in a
square piece of puckerment on the back and breast, on the shoulders and
at the wrists; is adorned also, in those parts, with flourishes of white
thread, and as invariably has a little white heart stitched in at the
bottom of the slit at the neck. A man would not think himself a man, if
he had not one of those slops, which are the first things that he sees
at a market or a fair, hung aloft at the end of the slop-vender's stall,
on a crossed pole, and waving about like a scarecrow in the wind.
Under this he generally wears a coarse blue jacket, a red or yellow shag
waistcoat, stout blue worsted stockings, tall laced ankle-boots, and
corduroy breeches or trowsers. A red handkerchief round his neck is his
delight, with two good long ends dangling in front. In many other parts
of the country, he wears no slop at all, but a corduroy or fustian
jacket, with capacious pockets, and buttons of giant size.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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