Now of all the inventions of the Tailor (who is of all artists the most inventive) I hold the pocket to be the most commodious, and saving the fig leaf, the most indispensible. Birds have their craw; ruminating beasts their first or ante-stomach; the monkey has his cheek, the opossum her pouch; and, so necessary is some convenience of this kind for the human animal, that the savage who cares not for clothing makes for himself a pocket if he can. The Hindoo carries his snuff-box in his turban. Some of the inhabitants of Congo make a secret fob in their wooly toupet, of which as P. Labat says, the worst use they make is—to carry poison in it. The Matolas, a long haired race who border upon the Caffres, form their locks into a sort of hollow cylinder in which they bear about their little implements; certes a more sensible bag than such as is worn at court. The New Zealander is less ingenious; he makes a large opening in his ear, and carries his knife in it. The Ogres, who are worse than savages, and whose ignorance and brutality is in proportion to their bulk, are said, upon the authority of tradition, when they have picked up a stray traveller or two more than they require for their supper, to lodge them in a hollow tooth as a place of security till breakfast; whence it may be inferred that they are not liable to tooth ache, and that they make no use of tooth-picks. Ogres, Savages, Beasts and Birds all require something to serve the purpose of a pocket. Thus much for the necessity of the thing. Touching its antiquity much might be said; for it would not be difficult to show, with that little assistance from the auxiliaries _must_ and _have_ and _been_ which enabled Whitaker of Manchester to write whole quartos of hypothetical history in the potential mood, that pockets are coeval with clothing: and, as erudite men have maintained that language and even letters are of divine origin, there might with like reason be a conclusion drawn from the twenty-first verse of the third chapter of the book of Genesis, which it would not be easy to impugn. Moreover Nature herself shows us the utility, the importance, nay the indispensability, or, to take a hint from the pure language of our diplomatists, the _sinequanonniness_ of pockets. There is but one organ which is common to all animals whatsoever: some are without eyes, many without noses; some have no heads, others no tails; some neither one nor the other; some there are who have no brains, others very pappy ones; some no hearts, others very bad ones; but all have a stomach,—and what is the stomach but a live inside pocket? Hath not Van Helmont said of it, “_saccus vel pera est, ut ciborum olla?_”