“I remember when I was going from school at Newbury to have sometime met your sisters Martha and Mary in Hanging Sleeves, coming home from their school in Chandlers Lane, and have had the pleasure of speaking to them. And I could find it in my heart now to speak to Mrs. Martha again, now I myself am reduced to Hanging Sleeves.”
William Byrd, of Westover, in Virginia, in one of his engaging and sprightly letters written in 1732, pictures the time of the patriarchs when “a man was reckoned at Years of Discretion at 100; Boys went into Breeches at about 40; Girles continued in Hanging Sleeves till 50, and plaid with their Babys till Threescore.”
When Benjamin Franklin was seven years old, he wrote a poem which was sent to his uncle, a bright old Quaker. This uncle responded in clever lines which begin thus:—
“’Tis time for me to throw aside my pen
When Hanging-Sleeves read, write and rhyme like men.
This forward Spring foretells a plenteous crop
For if the bud bear grain, what will the top?”
A curious use of the long hanging sleeve was as a pocket; that is, it would seem curious to us were it not for our acquaintance with the capacity of the sleeves of our unwelcome friend, Ah Sing. The pocketing sleeve of the time of Henry III still exists in the heraldic charge known as the manche, borne by the Hastings and Norton family. This is also called maunch, émanche, and mancheron. The word “manchette,” an ornamented cuff, retains the meaning of the word, as does manacle; all are from manus.
Hanging sleeves had a time of short popularity for grown folk while Anne Boleyn was queen of England; for the little finger of her left hand had a double tip, and the long, graceful sleeves effectually concealed the deformity.
In my book entitled Child Life in Colonial Days I have given over thirty portraits of American children. These show the changes of fashions, the wear of children at various periods and ages. Childish dress ever reflected the dress of their elders, and often closely imitated it. Two very charming costumes are worn by two little children of the province of South Carolina. The little girl is but two years old. She is Ellinor Cordes, and was painted about 1740. She is a lovely little child of French features and French daintiness of dress, albeit a bright yellow brocaded satin would seem rather gorgeous attire for a girl of her years. The boy is her kinsman, Daniel Ravenel, and was then about five years old. He wore what might be termed a frock with spreading petticoats, which touched the ground; there is a decided boyishness in the tight-fitting, trim waistcoat with its silver buttons and lace, and the befrogged coat with broad cuffs and wrist ruffles, and turned-over revers, and narrow linen inner collar. It is an exceptionally pleasing boy’s dress, for a little boy.
A somewhat similar but more feminine coat is worn by Thomas Aston Coffin; it opens in front over a white satin petticoat, and it has a low-cut neck and sleeves shortened to the elbow, and worn over full white undersleeves. Other portraits by Copley show the same dress of white satin, which boys wore till six years of age.
