58 THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF COATS. 



upon their original wearer; and this character is indelible it lives 

 and dies with it : nothing but absolute extinction, or passing through 

 the hands of Jew clothes-dealers can obliterate it ; and this opens 

 another fertile field of inquiry and amusement. This field is par- 

 ticularly susceptible of cultivation in that numerous class of men 

 known as cads, &c., hangers-on about coach-stands, inns, and other 

 places of promiscuous resort. Here may be seen the most ridiculous 

 figures, both as to dress and address. Here a coat out of all pro- 

 portion to its diminutive wearer, and yet carrying an elegant outline, 

 the owner having as little relation with it as a snail in a tortoise- 

 shell ; there a burly-visaged broad-backed blackguard sporting a 

 regular jockey cut, which gives the fellow's bust something of a 

 gentlemanly character, altogether dependent upon his coat: strip him 

 of it, and the man stands in his proper colours a coarse, vulgar, 

 brutal slang-whanger. 



Sometimes coats in the progress of their descent meet with con- 

 genial spirits : this is another curious subject of inquiry. How 

 often do we meet with a shabby tatterdemalion, wearing, notwith- 

 standing its woful dilapidation, a gentlemanly coat! The humiliated 

 garment has obviously passed through the entire " art of sinking," 

 and here, upon the very verge of its existence, it finds a congenial 

 companion. How is this to be accounted for ? Man is not a block, 

 to which a good coat can give the appearance of a gentleman, as it 

 is altogether an error to suppose that gentlemen can be so manu- 

 factured ; yet here we find a piece of humanity, placed at the foot 

 of the ladder of life, who, if we are to trust to coat-physiognomy, 

 ought to be some steps higher : ask him of his birth and parentage ; it 

 is the lowest of the low: examine him as to his moral and intellectual 

 qualities ; they are a mere waste, utterly uncultivated : and yet, 

 notwithstanding these, he has the remains of a gentleman's coat on 

 his back, which evidently claims consanguinity with him. There is 

 a fine field here for the believers in Metempsychosis. 



