KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



177 



ODD FELLOWS. 



An odd man, Lady ! every man is odd." 



TROILUS AND CfcESSIDA. 



ARIETY IS, AND EVER HAS 



been, that wherein mankind 

 most delights. But for its 

 charms, life would become bur- 

 thensome to many ; and society 

 would hardly knowhow to exist. 

 Well! there can be no com- 

 plaint on this head ; for every day brings 

 with it something new. The world is insane, 

 doubtless ; and insanity has a thousand 

 ways of snowing itself. 



Besides the ordinary forms of insanity, 

 common to those who go at large in the 

 rest of Europe, we English are subject to 

 one variety which is rather peculiar to us, 

 and which is known to the world by the 

 mitigating euphonism of Oddity. 



The plenitude of the liberty of the subject 

 in these kingdoms, gives to the individual 

 so wide a latitude of indulgence in personal 

 peculiarities, as deprives him of much of 

 that wholesome self control, which is forced 

 upon the natives of more despotic states. 

 " Odd fellows " abound in England and its 

 dependencies. Every country town has, 

 at least, two or three of them ; and there 

 is scarcely a club, regiment, or a coterie, 

 without its odd fellow. It is truly astonish- 

 ing, by what minute particulars this species 

 of infirmity may be detected in persons who 

 are otherwise tolerably rational. In one 

 man it transpires in a broad brimmed hat 

 and a curiously built over-coat ; in another, 

 it figures under a colored fancy shirt, " egg 

 bound " with massive studs ; in another, it 

 lurks under an obstinate rejection of sus- 

 penders, and an hiatus valde defiendus between 

 the waistcoat and the nether habiliment.* 

 There are those who exhibit it in an undue 

 fondness for short tights and white cotton 

 stockings, on a November morning. 



Oddity also breaks out in certain inve- 

 terate habits and associations of ideas, which 

 have obtained a settled possession of the 

 mind, and irresistibly direct the will. There 

 are odd fellows, who can only smoke their 



* Kor skould I omit to chronicle our " odd 

 women," who seem to court the designation of 

 " Odd Fellows." Passing by Doudney's West- 

 end Clothes - Mart, one evening, I saw on a 

 dummy, " a fashionable lady's equipment," 

 ticketed — " the newest fashion." The front exhi» 

 bited a man's elongated vest, with large buttons 

 all the way down ; surmounted by a man's coat, 

 and wearing other outward signs of the genus 

 homo. Doudney, Moses, Hyam, Prew and Co., 

 — " authorities " all for the fashion of " oddity," 

 let us into many a secret, which, but for them, 

 we should remain in ignorance of. Our gratitude 

 is due, and it is hereby tendered. 



pipe in comfort, at a certain house, in a 

 certain chair, at a certain corner of the fire, 

 or using tobacco from a certain tobacconist. 

 A person of this frame of mind will send to 

 Whitechapel for a pound of tea, which he 

 might get as good, or better, at the next 

 door; and this merely because, at some 

 period of his life, it had suited his con- 

 venience to buy at that shop. There are 

 mighty decent people, who never slept out 

 of their bed for twenty long years ; and 

 who would sooner lose a legacy than visit 

 a dying uncle, if by so doing they should 

 break through the custom. There are- odd 

 fellows of rare and splendid talent, who 

 become stark mad once in every twenty-four 

 hours, if the dinner be not punctually served 

 to a minute at the one, uniform, appointed 

 hour ; and whose happiness is destroyed for 

 the day, if a single guest arrive before or 

 after the given instant. 



A very common symptom of this infirmity, 

 is the dressing better or worse than comports 

 with a man's rank and fortune. Puppyism, 

 indeed, is too common a symptom to be pro- 

 perly termed oddity; and when it arises 

 from an abject spirit of imitation, it does not 

 mount to the dignity of madness, and should 

 be placed to the account merely of folly : 

 where, however, it is original, and it is 

 directed exclusively to the one object of 

 notoriety, it springs from a maniacal vanity, 

 half the world away from sound reason. 

 The reverse of this hallucination, the dressing 

 like a beggar man, with a banker's book that 

 might stiffen Croesus, has less favor in the 

 eyes of the public ; and the patient is at 

 once set down as an ayaricious " bunks," 

 who will not afford himself a respectable 

 coat. This judgment is, for the most part, as 

 wide of the mark as the world's guesses at 

 the human heart ordinarily are. The tailor's 

 bill has nothing at all to do with the matter. 

 The man dresses like a blackguard — simply 

 because it pleases his fancy, his indolence, 

 or his indifference so to do ; or because he 

 derives a pleasure from setting folks staring 

 at the peculiarity, or from "the distinc- 

 tion " he imagines to have thus created for 

 himself. 



Oddity is not always an inherent malady ; 

 but may be induced by some shock given to 

 the feelings or affections, which stronger 

 intellects would have withstood. Such is 

 the origin of the oddity of women-haters, 

 who axe never at ease when there is a petticoat 

 in the room; because it reminds them of 

 some early disappointment. So, likewise, 

 there are relation- haters, who banish their 

 whole kin from their house because they 

 were once cheated by a first cousin ; or 

 because they have detected or suspected an 

 attack upon " their last will and testament " 

 by some toady nephew. What proves the 



Vol. Ill— 12. 



