Second Ditto: "Waw-waw-waw. No fellaw evaw saw such a fellaw. Gwoss cawicature-waw!"
But whiskers were the great feature of the 'sixties. They had been "ambrosial" before, but now the thing became a monstrosity in its profuse luxuriance. For this was the age of "Piccadilly Weepers," and of Lord Dundreary, the eccentric stage peer created by Sothern in Our American Cousin. Sothern, be it remembered, was a hunting-man and a persona grata in fashionable circles; and allowing for the element of caricature in his impersonation, it was at least based on firsthand knowledge of the type satirized. There is an interesting notice of the first production at the Haymarket of Our American Cousin in which Lord Dundreary is described as "a double eye-glassed dandy, with dyed whiskers which he paws and throws over his shoulder," but the critic admits that in spite of all Mr. Sothern's "funny and fantastic caricaturing, there is a something true to nature in his almost every touch." The hold that Sothern's impersonation took upon public fancy is shown by the fact that for several years Punch adopted "Dundreary" as a synonym for a vacuous, solemn, well-bred and prodigiously whiskered dandy, and in the Preface to Vol. xlii. Lord Dundreary is introduced as interlocutor in the usual dialogue.
THE NEW AND DELIGHTFUL METHOD OF BRUSHING THE HAIR WITH MACHINERY
Tailors' pseudo-classical nomenclature was already a frequent theme with Punch. In the same year Punch quotes a tailor's advertisement of a "Negligé Milled Tweed suit, consisting of cape jacket, vest and trousers for £2 2s. 0d.," which arouses the envy of the post-war Englishman. Hair-brushing by machinery is noted as a novelty in the autumn of 1863; we trust that the customers contrived to keep their whiskers out of the way of the brush. For the rest, we may briefly note the advent of the "Ulster" in 1871, and the prevalence of the single eye-glass in 1873.
[28] The present writer saw and heard Ristori in the sleep-walking scene at Manchester in the early 'eighties, and her foreign accent was undoubtedly most pronounced. Her first words provoked laughter from the gallery, drowned immediately in a storm of cheering, renewed at the end of an impersonation so powerful and even terrifying that one entirely forgot the accent. The episode had an amusing sequel. An old theatre-goer wrote to a Manchester paper to express indignation at Ristori's reception by the gallery. The laughers could not be Manchester men: they must have been boors from Chowbent. A couple of days later a letter appeared from an equally indignant resident at Chowbent repelling the aspersion on a community so civilized that it possessed a Town Hall!