The average cost of riding gear, every article being of the best and finest description, may be thus set down. Silk hats, from £1 1s. each; jerry ditto, 14s.; soft felt, 12s. 6d.; melton riding habits, £12 12s. each; rainproof ditto, £10 10s.; ordinary cloth, £10 10s.; summer cloth, £8 8s.; gingham or holland, £5 5s.; riding breeches, £4 4s. per pair; buckskin, £6 6s. to £8 8s.; trousers (chamois lined), from £2 2s. to £3 3s. Chemises, 8s. each. Web drawers (silk), £1 10s. per pair; (cotton), 7s. 6d.; vests (silk), £1 1s. each; (cotton), 5s. Corsets (satin), £4 4s.; sateen (red), £2 10s.; sateen (white), £2 2s. Wellington boots, £3 3s. per pair. Wool stockings, 3s. 6d.; pure silk, ditto, 16s.; spun silk, 6s. 6d. Latchford spur (plated), £1 1s.; japanned, 9s. 6d. Gloves, 5s. 6d. per pair. Celluloid collar and cuffs, 4s. Rainproof jacket, £2 2s. Cape, £1. Warm over-jacket, with braiding, £6 6s. Newmarket covert-coat, from £10 to £12. It would be impossible to lay down any rule for the price of whips, as much must necessarily depend upon the mounting; but I have always thought that with them, as with all other articles of riding apparel, the plainer they are the better. A good hunting-whip with long lash attached averages from £1 10s. upwards.
Every article that I have named may be had at a very much lower price; in fact for half (or even less) the ordinary cost that I have set down, but the question of course remains, “Are cheap things, as a rule, worth purchasing?”
CHAPTER XVII.
ECONOMY IN RIDING DRESS.
To economise well is a great art, and unfortunately very few persons understand it. The public mind wavers as a rule between two views of the matter—excessive parsimony, or continual hunting after cheap things. When I say “cheap,” I mean low-priced; for brummagem articles, no matter of what description, are always the very reverse of cheap. “I have got such a bargain,” says one dear friend to another, displaying some trumpery thing which would have been dear at half the price given for it; and away goes the friend and invests in a similar treasure, only to regret her want of wisdom when too late to retract.
The true secrets of economising are: first never to buy anything that you do not absolutely require; second, to purchase every article of the very best description; and third, to take care of your things when you have got them. These three rules will go far if attended to, but, like the Siamese twins, separate them and they will die. A word, then, about each—taking them in rotation as named.
Buy nothing that you do not want. It is a general weakness with ladies to infringe this rule. They are fond of shopping, and shopmen know it, and pander to the familiar infirmity—not only detaining them twice as long as is necessary at every counter, but showing them an endless variety of articles, by way of tempting them to buy. The artifice succeeds only too often, and the consequences are a lightened purse, and an unnecessarily burdened wardrobe.
To have too large a stock of clothes is in every way a mistake. They become old-fashioned before they are half worn out; they encourage and engender moths; they form a cumbrous baggage if compelled to move; and they are a source of embarrassment and trouble if taken away with one on visits—seeing that in this age a lady rarely enjoys the luxury of a wardrobe in her bedroom, except in her own house. Most of us consider such a commodity a necessity when at home, but when we go visiting it is a luxury absolutely denied us. I do not mean to say that there is not an imposing piece of furniture so styled in the sleeping apartment allotted to us; there almost always is; it looks quite magnificent, generally, with its shining panels and tempting mirrored centre—but, alas, it is a delusion and a snare! We find that the doors are immovable: they are locked; the hostess has it filled with her own fineries, and has either forgotten to remove them, or has said to herself that it would be too great a trouble to do so: the visitor can manage very well without it—has she not got her imperials, and the bed-rail—and the drawers of the toilet-table to keep her brushes and things in, and what more can she reasonably want? To say that this is not the way in good houses is both foolish and untrue; for it is so in the very best. It may be the fault of my lady’s maid, or housekeeper—probably it is, in many instances—but it is my lady’s fault in a great measure also, inasmuch as she has neither seen to the comforts of her guest, nor made inquiries concerning them. However this may be, or with whomsoever the fault may lie, the wardrobe is a sealed book, into which we are not permitted to peer, and so we cast our despairing eyes around us for some substitute, and brighten as we perceive a tempting-looking chest of drawers; but it likewise is a deception, for it is found to contain articles of children’s clothing folded away in the top receptacles, while the lower ones have toilet linen in them, and the big deep one at the bottom contains a bolster doubled in two, like a huge sausage put away to keep. This being the case, we shake a dismal head, and proceed to lay out our neat habit-skirts and other things on the bed-rail, and on the backs of the chairs; and by-and-by, when we return to our room to dress for dinner, we find that a remorseful hostess, or a conscience-stricken maid, has unlocked one of the mighty doors of the mysterious “sealed book,” and has graciously crammed three or four satin gowns on to one of the back pegs, leaving the front ones free to hold whatever we may be pleased to hang upon them. Sometimes even this small boon is not vouchsafed, and we run the tether of our visit with only chair-backs to depend upon for hanging purposes, and with the cheerful consciousness that all the maids in the establishment have tried on and admired themselves in every single article belonging to us for which we have been unable to find room in our trunks. I once caught a smart abigail in an English house pirouetting before the cheval-glass, dressed in my riding-breeches, and grinning delightedly, with a hand on each side of her waist. By way of punishment, I made her divest herself of the trifles in my presence, and by so doing found that she had augmented the evil by making an entirely wrong use of one of my silk vests—while as an end to all bitterness, she had actually fitted on my stockings and boots.
It being then an established fact that a superabundance of clothing is both an encumbrance and an extravagance which leads to waste, I think I have succeeded in proving that the first on my list of theories—namely, to buy nothing that is not absolutely required—is at least worthy of consideration. Of course, there is no rule that has not an exception, and there may be times—although they come but rarely—when there will be a perceptible advantage in purchasing clothing in advance: for example, when one is obliged to go for a lengthened period to some out-of-the-way place where things are absolutely not obtainable. In such, or similar cases, the regulation practice may be broken through, although even then it will be better, if possible, to secure the services of a friend who will purchase and send them out according as they are required.
The second point on which I have given advice—namely, to buy none save the best articles—is one upon which I must resolutely hold by my opinion, despite the fact that my expression of it in a sporting journal in which, some time ago, I quoted a list of probable prices, called down upon me such a vortex of letters—some of inquiry, others upon the extravagance of my ideas—that I fairly sat down under the shower in a state of bewilderment, and felt that the only way in which I could reply to such a multitude, or at all hope to satisfy them, was to select the first opportunity of writing a disquisition on economy—the present venture being the result.