The uniform of the hospital nurse partakes somewhat of that of the nun, but at the same time the apron is often one of its most important features. We mention this uniform here because it has become customary of recent years for the nurses who look after the children of well-to-do families to assume the bonnet and veil and severely cut collars and cuffs of the hospital nurse.
Here again we get a case on all fours with the adoption of evening dress by waiters, and the gradual assumption by the lower classes of the dress of their social superiors.
[XVI]
COCKADES
THE COCKADE A DEGENERATED CHAPERON—THE VARIETIES OF THE COCKADE—COCKADE WEARERS
The cockade as we know it (see Figure [116]) is now commonly worn by servants, but, like their clothes generally, it was once used by their masters. The books of an old-established firm of hat manufacturers show that as late as 1789 cockades were worn by gentlemen themselves. Apparently in the beginning, the sporting of a black cockade meant allegiance to the House of Hanover. Now the use of the ornaments is supposed to be confined to the servants of Royalty and of those in the Royal service, though this does not seem to be actually the case. In a letter to the Morning Post[18] Messrs. André and Co. say that “the practice has long been regarded as a convenient and fitting sign of social distinction, and that only such persons should assume the cockade as enjoy hereditary rank or else some position of importance in the State, including all officers, military and civil.” Yet they can find no trace of the question even having been dealt with by any authority, nor have the classes of persons privileged to display the cockade been at any time accurately defined.
Fig. 116.—The cockade, known as the “large treble,” representing a survival of the chaperon.