DEVELOPMENT IX DRESS. 49 



wrist. A barrister's gown has a small hood sewed to the left shoulder, 

 which would hardly go on to the head of an infant, even if it could be 

 opened out into a hood-shape. 



It is not, however, in our dress alone that these survivals exist ; 

 they are to be found in all the things of our every-day life. For in- 

 stance, any one who has experienced a drive on a road so bad that 

 leaning back in the carnage is impossible, will understand the full 

 benefit to be derived from arm-slings such as are placed in first-class 

 railway-carriages, and will agree that in such carriages they are mere 

 survivals. The rounded tracery on the outsides of railway-carriages 

 shows the remnants of the idea that a coach was the proper pattern on 

 which to build them; and the word "guard" is derived from the man 

 who sat behind the coach and defended the passengers and mails with 

 his blunderbuss. 



In the early trains (1838-'39) of the Birmingham Kailway there 

 were special "mail" carriages, which were made very narrow, and to 

 hold only four in each compartment (two and two), so as to be like the 

 coach they had just superseded. 



The words dele, stet, used in correcting proof-sheets, the words sed 

 vide or s. v., ubi sup., ibid., loc. cit., used in foot-notes, the sign " &," 

 which is merely a corruption of the word et, the word finis, until re- 

 cently placed, at the ends of books, are all doubtless survivals from 

 the day when all books were in Latin. The mark A used in writing 

 for interpolations appears to be the remains of an arrow pointing to 

 the sentence to be included. The royal " broad-arrow" mark is a sur- 

 vival of the head of " a barbed javelin, carried by sergeants-at-arms 

 in the king's presence as early as Richard the First's time." 1 Then, 

 again, we probably mount horses from the left side lest our swords 

 should impede us. The small saddle on the surcingle of a horse, the 

 seams in the backs of cloth-bound books, and those at the backs of 

 gloves, are rudiments but to give a catalogue of such things would 

 be almost endless. I have said enough, however, to show that by re- 

 membering that there is nihil sine causa, the observation of even 

 common things of every-day life may be made less trivial than it 

 might, at first sight appear. 



It seems a general rule that on solemn or ceremonial occasions men 

 retain archaic forms ; thus it is that court-dress is a survival of the 

 every-day dress of the last century ; that uniforms in general are 

 richer in rudiments than common dress ; that a carriage with a pos- 

 tilion is de rigueur at a wedding; and that (as mentioned by Sir John 

 Lubbock) the priests of a savage nation, acquainted with the use of 

 metals, still use a stone knife for their sacrifices just as Anglican 

 priests still prefer candles to gas. 



The details given in this article, although merely curious, and per- 

 haps insignificant in themselves, show that the study of dress from an 



1 Fairholt, p. 580. 



VOL. II, 



