TROUSER POCKETS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5416, 24 June 1879, Page 3

TROUSER POCKETS.

>(" Saturday Review.") One of the' numerous cruel devices conceived , by, wqmen .consists in sewing up the trou Ber .pockets of boys who have a trick of putting their hands into them.. Such a proceeding .is doubly pleasing: to women. First, it gratifies their instinc-

>tive love of inflicting petty punishments ; and secondly, < it affords them the indescribable pleasure of .depriving the opposite sex , of a privilege . and comfort I exclusively its own. Trouser. pockets " may not constitute the most romantic portion of .what Americans call garment nre, but they hot /the less form a highly characteristic feature of the male costume of the period ; and if poets have not yet immortalised them in verse, it is not from having.'fail^d to make much personal use of them. The habit, of placing our hands in our pockets, is awmple exigency of costume. With the exception of our faces and our hands, our whole bodies are clothed. As we cannot see., the former, the only members which are apparently naked are our hands.,; Being generally gloved in public, 'they never feel- well assured of their decency when uncovered, and so they instinctively seek their only available shelter. Then, again, Englishmen gene-

rally seem to regard their hands as inconvenientadditions to their bodies, of yrhich 7, they are ashamed and of whose use they are ignorant. . It is therefore an important consideration to find a place in which to stow away these ungainly incumbrances, and they like to keep them hidden in their pockets, ready, like their coppers or their pocket-knives, for any sudden emergency. We are well aware that there is little grace. 'bf'. curve' or outline" about a man standing ? with? his hands in his pockets ; that his attitude savours strongly of undue self-ponfidence, . and that it may tend to his moraifdeterioration. Indeed we may say that we fully admit the custom of thrusting the hands into the pockets of the trousers to be gravely objectionable, and are quite . unprepared to defend it upon any moral or artistic ground whatever.;'/.at tie same .time honesty and love of veracity compel us to allow that such a position is extremely comfortable. The .use of the trouser pockets as a depository for the hands is a custom whio.h .savours both of vulgarity and impudence. Under certain circumstances it both implies a slight and sugests defiance, and '..is-.. almost more offensive than any other that* a man can take. On the .other hand, it may be urged that there are times when it is perfectly admissible, as being suggestive of familiarity and friendship. There are occasions when the act of lying upon a sofa would be an unwarrantable breach of decorum, and there.: are .others when' it would be consistent with the strictest etiquette. So, likewise, may the thrusting of one's hands into one's pockets be a deliberate insult or an allowable proceeding, according to surroundings and circumstances. _ There are various ways of indulging in this habit, including many gradations between -^vulgarity and refinement ; and we do not think' that the most copious letterpress, accompanied by numerous illustrations, could define them exhaustively. It would be hard to say when this practice first became general. We can recollect the time when a venerable arrangement of the male attire precluded anything of the kind, and when the right trouser pocket was dignified by the name of the "fob." The introduction of a rudO'/hand into this highly respectable niche would have sadly disarranged the studied adjustment of the three inches of

ribbon which suspended from it a large bunch of seals and, watch-keys. Nor had the youth of the period any temptation to trouser-pocket their hands, as those vestments reached to within a few inches of their chinsj and, if they contained pockets at all, they held them almost out of reach.

As regards the origin of the 'trouser pocket, we are inclined to think that it is a lenial descendant of the old waist-belt, into which were stuck swords, knives, pictols, and pouches. The modern trouser pocket is still the usual receptacle of the knife ; we have known it to contain a pistol, and it commonly holds the purse or pouch ; and although a belt with its scabbard, dirk, and wallet, may sound better in poetry than trouser pockets, we do not know that . it is one whit more deserving of honor, or that it is in reality moreromantic. The most curious specimen of trouser pockets that we have ever seen was the property of a small boy. It wa3 evident from their exterior that they were not kept for empty show. When the owner was called upon to disgorge their contents, the wonderful things which were produced from their depths surpassed description. Pieces \of string, sugar candy, gun-caps, chocolate, a dead mouse, a half-eaten apple, and some elastic bands constituted but a small portion of the curiosities which were drawn slowly out. Such a spectacle made us determine that, although the question of putting one's hands into one's own pockets might be, to a certain extent, an open one, no consideration would ever induce us to put our hands into the hands of a small boy.