ALEHOUSE POLITICIANS,

OR ANNEXATION SETTLED FOR EVER.

BY

JOHN NEAL.

(See Engraving.)

THERE is no one thing, perhaps, by which | a single fragment or recollection of that costhe people of our mother country are so readily tume is preserved. Bed-quilts are family reand constantly distinguished from our people, cords; every bit of coloured cloth has its own as by a certain peculiarity of dress, never to dear household history-of marriage, or chrisbe met with here, and always to be met with tening, or death. Baby-clothes, being always there-breeches for example. Unmentionables made up of something left, are full of pleasant are to be found in all countries; inexpressibles memories and queer suggestions. An oldeverywhere; and shorts and tights, among the fashioned bonnet may often stand for the meSandwich Islanders; while your old-fashioned moirs of a whole neighbourhood—as knots tied corduroy breeches belong to the labouring on a string once told the history of the Monteclasses of Great Britain, as a part of their zumas, and still constitute the imperishable national costume. records of a North American savage. Under this reverential aspect, a pair of old breeches may become a sort of map, and every patch a bit of unquestionable autobiography; so that, with a little coaxing, and a little care, and a little good husbandry, by the help of our friend Vattemare, and his new system of exchanges, every little neighbourhood might have its own circulating library—of old clothes; if it could but go about the matter with downright seriousness. Ask Margaret Fuller, la contessa, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the young gentleman whose poetry "hath a smell of childhood" in it; or the bleached and thatched editor, who advertises himself and his paper by going about the streets slipshod, with "one stockin' off and one stockin' on," like that interesting youth mentioned in Mother Goose, as "my son John, who went to bed with his breeches on," if all these things are not true. And what then?

You never saw a woman with a wheelbarrow in America-nor an American labourer with breeches on. A carter's frock, anciently the gaberdine of our broad-chested forefathers, a pair of long-shorts, or a kind of outside waistcoat with sleeves to it—you never see here upon a native; nor after three months are over, upon our imported live-stock, the president-makers and Bulls that come to us by the cargo, labelled "for Cowes and a market." Wooden shoes, long pipes, and Swiss caps, or cumbrous woollen petticoats, making up in thickness whatever may be wanting in length, are just about as plentiful and short-lived.

But a few years ago, caps of the fashion you meet with at every step in England, Ireland, or Scotland, were never to be seen here, except now and then, and for a few days at most, upon the head of an immigrant, ashore in his Sunday's best; with Bridget and her blue cloak, heavy shoes, enormous Dunstable, and everlasting stride; or Norah, with her smart cap and her heavy red shawl, to keep him in countenance. And now, although hats of one sort or another-here of felt, and there of fursometimes of musquash and beaver, and sometimes of plush, are the only orthodox wear among the substantial yeomanry of the land; yet caps are multiplying themselves with a rapidity which threatens to denationalize, if not wholly to extinguish, our Jonathanism.

Now, between ourselves, all these things, hats, caps, breeches, long-shorts, wooden shoes, carter's frocks, and-so-forths, have a meaning in them; but a meaning very apt to be overlooked by the multitude.

While they indicate a nationality never to be mistaken, they constitute of themselves a law of association which never dies out, so long as 15

VOL. VI.

Wait a bit and you'll see.

When Peter the Great undertook to trim the beards of the Russians, instead of their backs, he ran more risk, than if he had ordered all the noblemen of the land to bring forth their wives and daughters, to be scourged in the marketplace by the common soldiery, as they are now, by the huge barbarians of the North; whose thrones are charnel-houses, and whose garments are rolled—not in the blood of the battle-field-but of the slaughter-house.

So too, when that suddenly transfigured Sardanapalus of our day, the reigning Sultan, awoke from the long slumber of his beardless youth, and with one blow-and at one and the same hour-like a destroying angel, smote the terrible Janissaries throughout the whole length and breadth of the land, the hazard he ran was hardly worth mentioning, compared with

that which followed the firman, abolishing | among the potato-patches, and there among shawls and slippers, yataghans, trousers, and the vintages, or corn-fields, or bleachingturbans; and obliging the soldiery of the em- grounds, or hedgerows, it matters little where. pire to betake themselves, body and soul, to They are acknowledged at sight, and honoured the frightful costume of the Franks. Nay, even at sight, like the patterns of a bedquilt, which now, with the Czar of all the Russias, and the every man, woman, and child, may have slept barbarian armies of all the North, mustering under at home. in their strength, and threatening to beleaguer Constantinople herself, should she persist in the vindication of her sovereignty, and refuse to bow herself to the dust at his bidding; what is the peril to be feared?-what the worst that could happen, with all the rest of the world harnessing for her relief, compared with the hazard she would incur, by letting her women go unveiled, unwatched, or trousered like Mrs. Fanny Kemble?

Once more. The habit which has prevailed for centuries among the most enlightened lawgivers on earth, of obliging the Jews to wear a particular kind of dress, or a distinguishing colour, or badge, or to confine themselves to a particular quarter, has done more to bind them together, to make them one people of a truth, and to strengthen them against the whole world, than all their persecutions and sufferings, and all their humiliations and wrongs have done to weaken or divide them.

One step further, if you please. Not only do they who wear the same kind of clothes, cut after the same prevailing type, look alike; but they see and feel alike, they think alike, and they believe alike. The Mohammedan, the Fire-worshipper, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Presbyterian, the Quaker, and the Jew; are not their clothes a part of their religion? Are they ever to be mistaken for people of a different faith?

Your thorough-bred Irish Protestant may always be distinguished from your thoroughbred Irish Catholic, by something of a shibboleth in the tilt of his cap, or the swing of his coat-tail-if he happens to have a tail to his coat: and you may swear to the flourish of a shelalah. Heretical caps and orthodox breeches are not confined to the hierarchy anywhere.

Look about you and judge for yourself. Are not all the blue jackets of one opinion-the pea-jackets of another? You never see a pair of double-breasted red waistcoats, with rolling collars, bright buttons, and very deep pockets, going to loggerheads, or comforters of the same colour quarrelling over their cups. All the pipes you see of the same length and shape have settled opinions upon every subject, and might be left smoking together till doomsday, without any fear of the consequences.

Put Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Tho

clothes, and they would be changed into overgrown babies-rather venerable, to be sure, but still babies ;-and though they might never ask for sugar-plums, or lollypop, or rattles, or leave off smoking, not a man of the whole could make a speech, or fight a battle, worth mentioning, till you took off his apron, or changed his clothes.

Just watch the effect of this law for yourself. The great ocean is covered with ships. They are all crowded with strangers. On their way to the land of promise, they go by one another like huge apparitions; not one living creature of the whole, seeing the face of another, out of his own ship, from the day of their departure, till a rough stranger comes crawling up out of the deep sea, dripping with fog and sea-mist, to say that in a few hours they will be along-mas H. Benton, and General Taylor into shortside o' the pier. And yet, the moment they touch that pier, and the noisy multitude are beginning to empty themselves, and their rattle-traps and their little ones, upon the new shore, that law of elective affinity begins to work. All the corduroy breeches are found huddling together, and all the blue cloaks and fluttering headgear, no matter what ships they came in. They are free to choose now, and choose they will; turning their backs without a sign of regret or remorse, upon such of their fellow-passengers, male or female, as may happen to wear petticoats of another colour, bustles in a different place, or shawls and wrappers after the fashion of a neighbourhood a full inch further north or south, by the map; and all rushing together, and attaching themselves without a word of introduction or apology, to the first group they find crystallizing in the frosty air of a new country, and in the right shape, with the bonnets and broghans, the caps and the calicoes they have always been familiar with from their babyhood; - here

Go to the wharves, after a long easterly wind, and watch the president-makers coming ashore in troops, and you may guess at the leading opinions of all worth guessing at, both in church and state, by the cut of their jib.

And now to apply all this. Turn to the picture entitled "ALEHOUSE POLITICIANS," got up in a hurry by a whimsical fellow, who wanted to call it "ANNEXATION SETTLED FOR EVER!" and see if you cannot give a guess at the opinions of every man you see represented there-and a guess, too, by which you would be willing to abide in a court of justice, under oath-even if it were entitled "Ho! for California!" But how happens it? Simply be