STOCKS:
Considerations on the origin of Stocks:—their advantages, inconveniences, colours, forms, and fashions.
Although the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and nearly all the ancient nations, were unacquainted with the use of Cravats and Stocks, they wore collars, which may reasonably be considered as the avant-couriers of both.
Collars, made of the richest metals, and lined with a soft cloth, were worn, like the modern Stock, to ornament the face and support the chin. The general use of collars amongst the ancients, and Stocks in our own times, would almost prove that when man is left to himself, “his nose is much more inclined to claim acquaintance with the earth,” (to use the expression of a celebrated French author), “than his eyes with the Heavens,” as Buffon asserts.
However that may be, collars have been entirely superseded by the introduction of Stocks: these are in fact collars, though composed of different materials—they form no wrinkle—make but one turn round the neck, and are fastened behind by a buckle or clasps.
Stocks were first introduced as military costume about the commencement of the eighteenth century. Choiseul, minister of war under Louis XV. presented them to the troops in lieu of the Cravat.
These Stocks were made of black horse-hair, tolerably hard, moderately wide, and were only injurious when fastened too tightly. In many regiments, the officers wishing the men to appear healthy, obliged them to tighten the Stock so as almost to produce suffocation, instead of allowing them more nourishing food, or of treating them with more kindness; or, in short, of giving them an opportunity of acquiring that health, the appearance only of which was produced by the tightened stock.
The Stock has ever since formed a part of military costume. Invention has been racked to diversify it as much as possible; and, as appearance alone was consulted, each change has rendered it more injurious; it has been transformed into a collar as hard as iron, by the insertion of a slip of wood, which acting on the larynx, and compressing every part of the neck, caused the eyes almost to start from their spheres, and gave the wearer a supernatural appearance often producing vertigos and faintings, or at least bleeding at the nose. It rarely happened that a field-day passed over without surgical aid being required by one or more soldiers, whose illness was only produced by an over-tightened Stock. As the same kind of Stock was used for necks of all sizes, whether long or short, thin or thick, it rendered the weaver, in many cases, almost immoveable; he was scarcely able to obey the order, “right face—left face,” and was entirely prohibited from stooping.
Stocks have lately been much improved, and these objections no longer exist. The best Stocks for general use are made of whalebone, thinned at the edges, with a border of white leather, which entirely prevents that unpleasant scratching of the chin so often produced by the whalebone penetrating the upper part.