Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1930. THE SPREAD OF THE TROUSER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1930. THE SPREAD OF THE TROUSER

In their "Hustled History, or The Sprinter's Guide to Knowledge," Messrs. E. V. Lucas and C. L. Groves give the first three places in their great historical episodes to "The Flood," "The Origin, of Diabolo," and "The Siege of Troy." With the'sub-titles "A Boon to Man ! —No More Cold Knees," the fourth place is given to "The Discovery of Trousers." Alexander the Great had found a new world to conquer after all, and a representative of the "Tailor and Cutter" was despatched from the Grecian capital to investigate "a discovery that promised to revolutionise. male attire."

It seems, he reported, that the Conqueror had retired for a while from his suite and was pondering in an open spaco of the junglo on tho great riddle of life and the littleness of man, when lib was aware of the contiguity of an elephant, wild but friendly, with what he conceived to. be its back towards him. As he looked he was struck by tbo negligence and ease with which this vast animal wears the skiii on its legs, at once so loose and; well fitting, so serviceable and unpretentious. Feeling at the same moment a chilliness about his own knees, Alexander at once signalled for the Court tailor and bade him, to his enormous astonishment and reluctance, make'him a garment on similar lines, arid this the Emperor has been wearing ever since. - The new garment is called facetiously "browsers," from the Court tailor's humorous remonstrance when first instructed to study tho elephant. "Well, I trow, sir!" which His Majesty repeats with infinite drollery. The etymology, admirable as it is, is not much better, than that ence seriously suggested for the word which was, formerly a serious com-' petjtor with "trousers," and in its ugly abbreviation still holds the field— ~

The things named "pants" in certain documents, .-.V" A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents." . ■' .

Under "pantaloons, pants," Mr. R. H. Thornton quotes in his "American Glossary" a passage which is of equal interest as a sample of amateur philology and as a note on the fashions of the early nineteenth century :—

1836. Pantaloons. This word is derived from the Latin "pone," almost, and "ialoncs," the heels, because they come quite down to the heels. It is in tho memory of poisons now living in Mississippi, tho, beaux and belles of Spanish times,; pantaloons wero inadmissible at balls, as small clothes now j would be.—Phila, "Public Ledger," 21st July.'-- ;■■ ;': _ ■ ."•■■-,

The story of Alexander's discovery is made quite convincing by the picture which Mr. George Morrow supplies of the great man making his discovery. Clad in military attire, of which the greaves are obviously quite insufficient to protect his legs against the cold air from the mountains nearby, he is contemplating in amazement the ample and continuous folds of the trousers on the elephant's hind legs. Even when measured by the standard by which Oxford, forsaking for once her role as the "home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names and impossible loyalty," gave the world a not quite impossible lead in trousers a few years ago, the amplitude of the elephant's trousers and the irregularity of their creases are; no doubt a little too liberal for the human model. It is therefore satisfactory to learn from the same high authority that the alert intelligence of the great Emathian conqueror had not failed to note the point and provide a remedy:—

Our representative adds that, Alexander tho Great recently improved the original idea in the press of bottle, and his best trowsers are now carefully creased. :

Though this remarkable discovery may do more credit to the imagination of Messrs. Lucas, Groves and Morrow than to the invention of Alexander the Great, though trousers, must,be regretfully classed among the few good things that ' modern civilisation does not owe to that of the Greeks or the Romans, the elements of eternal truth which are enshrined in all the great efforts of the imagination are not lacking in the article which was about twenty years ago written for the "Tailor, and Cutter" of the fourth century 8.C.. The headline "No" More Cold Knees" undoubtedly indicates the origin, or one of the origins, of trousers. The suggestion that the first trouser-press was the press of bottle might be justified by a learned and literal-minded German professor as a symbolic truth indicating the contribution which warfare has made to the dissemination of the trouser.

Long before the .Greeks or the

Romans had emerged into the. twilight of history, the Scythians had been a great nomadic and fighting race. They first appear in Europe about the year 1 of both Greek and Roman history, and spread over huge areas of what is now Russia and also of Asia Minor. According to "Chambers's Cyclopaedia" the Scythians \

lived iv tent-ear wagons, wore coats, breeches and boots, fought with bows and arrows on horseback, and made drinking-cups of the skulls of their enemies.

[We regret to add that they were "filthy in their habits" and worshipped strange gods in a distinctly unedifying fashion. But it is with their attire only that we are concerned, and this would ' have presented a still more modern appearance if the writer had not sacrificed accuracy Ito alliteration and substituted ("breeches and boots" for "trousers and boots." The point is put clearly by Herr Koehler, whose "History of Costume" has recently appeared in an. excellently illustrated English translation:—

The dress of the Scythians, Sarmatians, and Dacians is, ho writes, specially interesting because the ,cut and style of it show many points of resemblanco to tho Teutonic fashion of prehistoric and early times. The Scythians (of about 700 8.C.) wore long trousers, snioek-liko shirts, and cloaks .very like those woni by Teutonic peoples.

A race whose Asian orbit may well have extended into the Arctic Circle had good reason to know the importance of keeping the legs warm, and the land of Teutons was cold enough to teach them the same lesson. The determining influence of climate is emphasised by Mr.. Lester in his "Historic Costumes":—

The impulse that shaped modern dress came from the North. There, climatic conditions necessitated a more clinging garment. The long, loose tunic and mantle were not sufficient to sustain the warmth of the body, so these men of the North wrapped their legs in cloth or skins. They were looked upon and, ridiculed by the Romans as "trousered barbarians."

When the Orontes, as the Roman poet said, poured itself into the Tiber, it brought many •■ strange things with it, but the trousers of the East: were not among them. A garment which the Romans rejected when it savoured of Oriental effeminacy was, however, according to Mr. Lester, adopted by that utilitarian people, presumably for its soldiers and settlers, as the boundaries of its Empire were extended into Northern Europe. . • . In modern times the vogue of the trouser owes much more to the French than to the Teutons, but we have no space to deal with this period of its evolution. Both in France and in Britain 1330 is named as the year in which knee-breeches were finally ousted by trousers as an article of masculine attire," and it is strange that exactly a century later an attempt is being made in France to claim them for the other sex also. In the nineteenth century Mrs. Bloomer endeavoured to secure what might be called a thinly-veiled trouser for her sex, but she added a new word to the language without adding a new garment to the feminine wardrobe.; Where the flank attack of Amelia Bloomer failed is the frontal attack of Vilette Morris to succeed? It is a question of thrilling interest which depends in the first instance on the result of the leading case, Morris v. the Feminine Sporting Federation of France. The French Court has reserved judgment, and we propose to follow that very wise step. .^___^_____