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KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



forming as it were a graceful counterpoise 

 below, to the elegant attitude above ; and the 

 remaining arm hanging loosely down, and at 

 a little distance from the 'perpendicular line 

 which is formed by the erect position of the 

 body. With such a perfect form, replete 

 with reason, health, and vigor, man acts 

 strangely to his own disadvantage, whenever 

 he allows the foolish fashion of the day to 

 injure his symmetry, or permits the gratifica- 

 tion of his appetite to interfere with the 

 arrangements for the preservation of his 

 health. 



It is but too true, that the astonishing dis- 

 coveries in the mode of preparing his food 

 have disposed him to disease in many 

 frightful shapes ; whilst the unfitness of his 

 attire to the true form of his body has been 

 productive of so much mischief to his gene- 

 neral symmetry, that there are doubts if he 

 would not have been better off had he ad- 

 hered to his original haunts, so admirably 

 touched upon by Dryden : — 



" When wild in wood the noble savage ran." 



Civilised man has certainly an undoubted 

 right to put on clothes of any color, or of 

 any size and shape ; but then, the rest of the 

 community ought not to be pointed at, nor 

 turned into ridicule, if their own notions of 

 raiment dissuade them from imitating his 

 example. But how little is this liberality 

 either practised or understood by man re- 

 claimed from the forests ! Some royal spend- 

 thrift, supported by the public purse, some 

 brainless son of fortune just entered into the 

 possession of enormous wealth, sets the 

 fashion ; and then all must adopt it, be their 

 aversion to it ever so extreme. Fashion may 

 be tolerable in some degree when it merely 

 trims the purse, but it is utterly intolerable 

 when it affects the person. 



He was a cunning and a clever shoemaker, 

 who first succeeded in turning old Grand- 

 father Squaretoes into ridicule, and in setting 

 up young Sharpfoot as a pattern for universal 

 imitation. What must have been poor old 

 Dame Nature's surprise and vexation, when 

 she saw and felt the abominable change? 

 The toes have their duty to perform, when 

 the frame of man is either placed erect, or 

 put in motion : shoes at best are a vast in- 

 cumbrance to them ; but when it happens 

 that shoes are what is called a bad fit, then 

 all goes wrong indeed, and corns and blisters 

 soon oblige the wearer of them to wend his 

 way — 



" With faltering step and slow." 



When I see a man thus hobbling on, I con- 

 demn both his fortitude and folly : his forti- 

 tude, in undergoing a pedal martyrdom with- 

 out necessity; and his folly, in wearing, for 

 fashion's sake, a pair of shoes so ill adapted to 

 his feet in size and shape. Corns are the un- 



doubted offspring of tight shoes ; and tight 

 shoes the proper punishers of human vanity. 

 If the rules of society require that I should 

 imprison my toes, it does not follow that I 

 should voluntarily force them on to the 

 treadmill. The foot of man does not end in 

 a point; its termination is nearly circular. 

 Hence, it is plain and obvious that a pointed 

 shoe will have the effect of forcing the toes 

 into so small a space that one will lie over 

 the other for want of room. By having always 

 worn shoes suited to the form of my foot, I 

 have now at sixty-two the full use of my 

 toes ; and this is invaluable to me in ascend- 

 ing trees. 



There is something very forbidding to my 

 eye, in a foot with a pointed shoe on ; I 

 always fancy that I can see there, comfort, 

 and ease, and symmetry, all sacrificed at the 

 tinsel shrine of fashion. Never be it for- 

 gotten, that tight shoes and tight garters 

 are very successful agents in producing cold 

 feet ; and that cold feet are no friends to a 

 warm heart. The foot of man is formed in 

 Nature's finest mould : custom causes us to 

 conceal it, and necessity to defend it from 

 the asperities of the flinty path; but we 

 never can improve its original shape, or add 

 any thing to its natural means, in the per- 

 formance of its important task. 



It were well if our bodily miseries com- 

 menced and ended in our shoes ; but there is 

 something fearfully wrong in our wearing 

 apparel, at the other end of our body, betwixt 

 the head and shoulders. 



What in the name of hemp and bleaching 

 has a cravat to do with the throat of man, 

 except at Newgate ? The throat is the great 

 thoroughfare or highway for the departure 

 and return of the blood from the heart to the 

 head, and back again ; and we all know that 

 pressure on the vessels which contain this 

 precious fluid, maybe attended with distress- 

 ing, and even fatal consequences ; so that, 

 when a man falls down in a fit, the first 

 attempt at relief on the part of the bystanders 

 is to untie his cravat. Indeed, the wind- 

 pipe, the veins, and the arteries located in 

 the neck, may be considered as life's body- 

 guards, which will not allow themselves to 

 be too severely pressed upon with impunity. 



When we consider how very near these 

 main channels of life are to the surface of the 

 throat, we wonder at the temerity of the 

 man who first introduced the use of cravats 

 as a protection against the weather, or as an 

 ornament to the parts. When he was about 

 this roguish business, why did he stop short 

 at the neck ? He might just as well have 

 offered clothing to the nose and cheeks. If 

 these last-mentioned parts of our mortal 

 frame can safely accommodate themselves to 

 the blasts of winter, or the summers sun, 

 surely the throat might be allowed to try its 



