CHAPTER XIII 



OLD COUNTRY FOLK THEIR CLOTHING 



Among the many changes in ways of living that have 

 come about within the last fifty years, one of the most 

 regrettable is the loss of the characteristic dress of our 

 working folk. 



I can just remember when both men and women wore 

 a real country dress. It went on more or less till near 

 1860, a date when much of the old tradition, 

 in many different ways, was dying. Indeed, I 

 can remember one old man whose Sunday dress 

 was knee-breeches, with a high-collared coat of 

 an almost eighteenth-century type, and a low- 

 crowned beaver hat, and even one who wore a 

 pigtail. This must have been in the fifties. 



And there was one old woman whose gown 



had short sleeves, leaving her arms bare, with 



which she always wore a blue-checked apron 



and a large mob-cap. As she worked in her . 



& L Old Brass 



cottage so she went shopping in the village ; Shoe-Buckles 

 there was no addition to this costume. 



But the usual women's dress in my youngest days was a 

 print gown and apron, and either a sun-bonnet of cotton print 

 with a deep curtain, or a very plain straw bonnet with a 

 narrower curtain and a single ribbon, that passed over 

 the top and came down to tie under the chin. Often in 



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