"The dress of the Siamese men is so much like that of the women that a stranger cannot tell at first whether he is looking at the one or the other. I will send you a picture, so that you may understand how they look much easier than if I took half a dozen pages in writing to tell it. You see that a gentleman and lady have the same garments, except that the lady wears a scarf over her shoulders, or rather over her left shoulder, and passing under her right arm. The gentleman has a tiny bit of a linen collar on his jacket, while the lady has none, and he also has wristbands, something after the European model. The trousers are like a piece of cloth four or five feet square, and one corner is tucked under a belt in the centre of the waist; the ladies generally wear brighter colors than their husbands, but the cut of the garment is practically the same.
"Nearly everybody goes barefoot; and when they do put anything on their feet, it is rarely more than a light sandal. The custom of wearing shoes and boots such as we have is never likely to become popular in a country so hot as this is, and where there is no snow or ice. Children, up to five or six years of age, have no garments of any consequence; and even when they are older, their clothing would not shield them from the cold if they were compelled to face a New York winter. A tailor would not make a fortune by coming to Siam and trying to get the people to wear clothes like American ones; and as for a corn doctor, he would have no chance at all where tight boots, or boots of any kind, are practically unknown.
"Then, too, they dress their hair in pretty much the same way, so that you cannot tell a man from a woman by looking at their heads, as you can in most other countries of the world. They shave all the lower part of the head, and leave the crown covered with a tuft, or bunch, that reminds you of a shoe-brush. The men have very light beards, like all Oriental people; and whenever one of them finds that he can raise a mustache or a beard, he is pretty sure to do so, as he wants to look unlike his neighbors. But as a general thing beards do not become the Oriental features, though mustaches do; and when I see a Chinese or a Japanese or a Siamese with a beard, which is not often, I feel like asking him to go home and shave it off.
A YOUNG PRINCE OF THE ROYAL HOUSE, WITH HIS ATTENDANT.
"The first hair-cutting, at the time a child is twelve or fourteen years old, is a very important ceremony. No matter how poor the parents of a child may be, they manage to have some kind of an entertainment, be it ever so humble, while with the rich a great deal of money is spent on the affair. In the case of a royal child the festivities are on a grand scale, and the whole population is expected to rejoice. We heard something about the ceremony when we were in Cochin-China, and we have heard a great deal more about it since we came here. We wish one was to come off now, but unfortunately there is nothing of the kind in prospect.
"A few months ago the eldest of the king's children reached the proper age for the So-Kan, as the hair-cutting ceremony is called, and for weeks before the event the preparations for it were going on. I cannot do better than copy the account that was published at the time in the Siam Daily Advertiser, a newspaper that is printed here by some Americans who have lived a long time in Bangkok. Here it is:
"'Princess Sri Wililaxan is the eldest daughter of his majesty the King of Siam; her mother is one of the daughters of his excellency Chow P'raya Kralahome, the Prime-minister of Siam. This princess is consequently the great-granddaughter of his grace the ex-regent, and the granddaughter of the prime-minister.