The buttons, in the interesting cases which we have described, have been allowed to remain as part and parcel of our costume on account of their decorative character, and in a great measure the same is true of those on coat cuffs (see Figure 25). In many cases there are proper buttonholes, and it is possible to undo the sleeve buttons; but occasionally the arrangement has degenerated and the buttonholes are imitations or only the buttons remain. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--A modern coat cuff with buttons.] [Illustration: FIG. 26.--Turned-back cuff, end of seventeenth century (after Bonnart).] To find an explanation of this feature we shall have to go back again to the seventeenth century, when so much was expended upon coats that it became advisable to turn back the cuffs out of harm's way. To hold them in position, series of buttons and buttonholes were devised, and just as the turning back of the skirts was at first temporary and afterwards came to be done once for all when the coat was made, so the turned-back cuff grew into a permanent institution. In Figure 26 the buttons are one above the other as in modern dress, but in the next two Figures (27 and 28) they are horizontal. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--A coat sleeve (after Hogarth) with a horizontal row of buttons.] [Illustration: FIG. 28.--Sleeve of a coat of the seventeenth century, reputed to have been worn by Charles I.] A survival of this arrangement can still be seen in the coat sleeves of the higher clergy. In ordinary dress, the turned-back edge of the cuff may now only be represented by a band of braid or a row of stitches; but in soldiers' uniforms, an ornamented cuff persists which represents in reality the lining of the sleeve. Again, the turned-back cuff is actually present in the clothes of costermongers, and has been revived on overcoats to a considerable extent during the last few years. (See Figure 29.) As a rule, too, the vertical pocket already described accompanies the turned-back cuff, as it did some centuries ago. (See Figure 20.) [Illustration: FIG. 29.--The turned-back cuff on an overcoat, modern.] [Illustration: FIG. 30.--A sleeve with vertical buttons and a turned-back cuff as well (from a uniform, after Hogarth).] It must not be forgotten that buttons have long been used on narrow sleeves. They are undone when the hand is to be pushed through the cuff, and afterwards fastened for the sake of warmth or to give a neat appearance. It is therefore possible that the ring of buttons is more properly a survival of the time when cuffs were turned back to preserve them, and that the vertical row is really of earlier origin. A uniform represented by Hogarth (Figure 30) shows both the row of buttons and the turned-back cuff, which seems to be quite independent of them.