In many cases the stockings are dark in colour, and the effect of tattooing is produced without the preliminary pain and inconvenience. We have here an instance of the way in which the specially human instinct of decorating the body persists, and at the same time a development of the fashion for displaying, in the daytime under a thin veil of gauze or lace, the necks and arms which since the time of our grandmothers have only been allowed to appear uncovered in the evening.
Leather stockings were once worn, for example, by William Penn, and they and the leggings of to-day may be a direct survival from the time when our ancestors, though still wearing skins, had learnt to dress them. Leggings, as such, are possibly connected more closely with the protection of man against man than with that of man against the weather, and in that case their history is bound up with that of armour. Gaiters, under the name of spatter-dashes, were originally part of a soldier’s uniform. To-day, when worn by civilians in ordinary dress, they are quite short, and go by the contracted name of “spats.” Pedestrians still wear the full-sized gaiters in conjunction with knickerbockers, and white gaiters are a feature of Highland regiments.
Long Florentine hose, which practically took the place of trousers and stockings together, are now represented by what are called “tights,” and are to be seen in the dress of acrobats. We shall allude to these again.
Garters when visible on men’s legs become very ornamental, and one in use now, merely as a decoration, gave its name to the celebrated Order of Knighthood, among the insignia of which it is still to be found. At the present day garters are hidden, and there is a tendency for them to be replaced by more comfortable straps or “suspenders,” but those which ladies wear still retain their gaudy character. In this connection an interesting ceremony may be mentioned, which is carried out in Haute-Vienne on the day of St. Eutropius. All the girls of the neighbourhood troop to the church dedicated to the saint at St. Junien-les-Gombes, and each damsel hangs her left garter on the cross hard by, which becomes so smothered with garters of different colours that when seen from a short distance it looks as if it were covered with flowers.
[VIII]
PETTICOATS AND TROUSERS
THE BELTED PLAID AND KILT—EARLY SKIRTS—THE ANTIQUITY OF TROUSERS—TROUSER STRIPES
We were at some pains to trace the evolution of the coat from the shawl, and it is possible also to show that the petticoat, and through this even trousers, have equal claims to the same ancestry.