DEVELOPMENT IN DRESS. 47 



were buttoned back to a row of buttons running round the wrist. 

 These buttons still exist in the sleeves of a Queen's Counsel, although 

 the cuffs are sewed back and the button-holes only exist in the form 

 of pieces of braid. This habit explains why our soldiers now have 

 their cuffs of different colors from that of their coats ; the color of 

 the linings was probably determined for each regiment by the colonel 

 for the time being, since he formerly supplied the clothing ; and we 

 know that the color of the facings was by no means fixed until re- 

 cently. The shape of the cuff has been recently altered in the line 

 regiments, so that all the original meaning is gone. 



In order to allow of turning back with ease, the sleeve was gen- 

 erally split on the outer side, and this split could be fastened together 

 with a line of buttons and embroidered holes. In Hogarth's pictures 

 some two or three of these buttons may be commonly seen above the 

 reversed cuff; and notwithstanding that at first the buttons were out 

 of sight (as they ought to be) in the reversed part of the cuff, yet after 

 the turning back had become quite a fixed habit, and when sleeves 

 were made ti^ht ao-ain, it seems to have been usual to have the button 

 for the cuff sewed on to the proper inside, that is to say, the real out- 

 side of the sleeve. 



The early stage may be seen in Hogarth's picture of the " Guards 

 marching to Finchley," and the present rudiment is excellently illus- 

 trated in the cuffs of the same regiments now. The curious buttons 

 and o-old lace on the cuffs and collars of the tunics of the Life-Guards 

 have the like explanation, but this is hardly intelligible without ref- 

 erence to a book of uniforms, as for example Cannon's "History of the 

 Second Dragoon Guards." 



The collar of a coat would in ordinary weather be turned down 

 and the lining shown; hence the collar has commonly a different 

 color from that of the coat, and in uniforms the same color as have 

 the cuffs, which form, with the collars, the so-called " facings." A pict- 

 ure of Lucien Bonaparte in Lacroix's work on Costume shows a collar 

 so immense that were it turned up it would be as high as the top of 

 his head. This drawing indicates that even the very broad stand-up 

 collars worn in uniforms in the early part of this century, and of a 

 different color from that of the coat, were merely survivals of an 

 older form of turn-down collar. In these days, notwithstanding that 

 the same difference in color indicates that the collar was originally 

 turned down, yet in all uniforms it is made to stand up. 



The pieces of braid or seams which run round the wrist in ordinary 

 coats are clearly the last remains of the inversion of the cuffs. 



Trousers. I will merely observe that we find an intermediate 

 stage between trousers and breeches in the pantaloon, in which the 

 knee-buttons of the breeches have walked down to the ankle. I have 

 seen also a German servant who woi*e a row of buttons running from 

 the knee to the ankle of his trousers. 



