The Crimea brought Alma overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same time _Punch_ caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels, which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark. There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however (according to _Punch_), was Prince Albert, whose continual and unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere. _Punch_ speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But _Punch_ himself was much preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid "chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by 1850. _Punch_ warred against it almost as vigorously and as ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal hat:-- Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible _sombrero_ of grey, or brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a dress at once becoming and congruous. [Sidenote: _Fashions for Men_] [Illustration: WHY, INDEED! PERCEPTIVE CHILD: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"] [Illustration: A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!] The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to enable _Punch_ to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the "chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but the "all round collar" of which _Punch_ has a picture in 1854 approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not uncommon; but the caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of _Punch's_ favourite butts, shows that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe _Mr. Punch_, caricature was unnecessary. [Sidenote: _The Ideal Hat_] [Illustration: "SIBBY"--1843]