Ladies' dresses — The Dandizette — Waltzing — The Quadrille — Almack's — Women's education — Women's work — Women Soldiers and Sailors — Female rowing match — Female pedestrian — Gretna Green Marriages — Some curious marriages.

For the limits of a book like this, I have spent enough time on the Roads, Streets, Country, and even Gipsies, so let me turn to the men and women of the time. Place aux dames of course—so we will begin with the ladies first. And in the next few engravings which I give are culled specimens of women's dresses from 1811 to 1820.

Of course there would be caricatures—some rather outrÉe, others very moderate—I give two of the Dandizette or Dandyess as she was indifferently called, one true, the other, as with her concomitants, perhaps, a trifle exaggerated—but not a great deal. Perhaps it is most so in "the Fashionables of 1816," where, I must own, the feathers in the bonnets, the large Muffs, and the short skirts are, doubtless, slightly in advance of the fashion, but it is an amusing picture, with no harm in it, and I give it. Of course, I cannot vouch for its truth, but the following little story is as I find it: "June 8, 1812. A young lady of rank and high Condition, in the warmth of her dancing heart, thus addressed her partner at the late Lord Mayor's ball.—'God bless you—take care and don't tread upon my muslin gown, for you see that I have nothing under it.'"

And, when we look at a really sensible picture of a dance (Waltzing), I do not think it is very much exaggerated. Waltzing was considered by some as awfully wicked. It may be. Personally, my dancing days are over, but I never felt particularly sinful when waltzing—Mrs. Grundy is another name for nastiness. For instance, take two separate verses in the same paper:—

Very properly rebuked thus:—

Read "The Waltz," by Lord Byron, and see what was thought of this dance. On June 9, 1817, we read: "Quadrilles have had but a short run. They have now had a lamentable descent, not from the drawing-room to the kitchen, to supersede the Contre Danse, but from Almack's to Hockley in the Hole. Though they have not yet fallen into the kitchen, the kitchen has risen to them. Some days ago the Lady of a Noble Admiral, lately returned from the Mediterranean, happened to come home from a Ball unexpectedly, when her Ladyship found all her domestics busily employed in a quadrille in the drawing-room, with the chandeliers lighted up, and a regular band of two violins, a bass, and a harp. Her Ladyship owns that they danced them with as much grace and spirit as is visible elsewhere." And they did dance in those days—there was no languid walking through a quadrille. All the steps were properly and accurately performed. I have before me engravings of a set of all the figures—1 Le Pantalon, 2 L'ÉtÉ, 3 La Poule, 4 La Trenise, or 4 La Pastorale and La Finale, which are delicious, but are too large for reproduction in this book.

Of course, the CrÊme de la crÊme went to Almack's, but numberless were the Peris who sighed to enter that Paradise, and could not. Capt. Gronow, writing of 1814, says: "At the present time one can hardly conceive the importance which was attached to getting admission to Almack's, the seventh heaven of the fashionable world. Of the three hundred officers of the Foot Guards, not more than half a dozen were honoured with vouchers of admission to this exclusive temple of the beau monde; the gates of which were guarded by lady patronesses, whose smiles or frowns consigned men and women to happiness or despair. These lady patronesses were the Ladies Castlereagh, Jersey, Cowper, and Sefton, Mrs. Drummond Burrell, the Princess Esterhazy, and the Countess Lieven."

In a Newspaper of May 12, 1817, we read—"The rigorous rule of entry established at Almack's Rooms produced a curious incident at the last Ball. The Marquis and Marchioness of W——r, the Marchioness of T——, Lady Charlotte C——, and her daughter, had all been so imprudent as to come to the rooms without tickets; and, though so intimately known to the Lady Managers, and so perfectly unexceptionable, they were politely requested to withdraw, and accordingly they all submitted to the injunction."

Again, at the beginning of the season of 1819 we find these female tyrants issuing the following ukase: "An order has been issued, we understand, by the Lady Patronesses of Almack's, to prevent the admission of Gentlemen in Trowsers and Cossacks to the balls on Wednesdays—at the same time allowing an exception to those Gentlemen who may be knock-kneed, or otherwise deformed." But the male sex were equal to the occasion, as we find in the following lines:—

I have collected a quantity of ana respecting ladies' dress of this period, but some would take too long to explain their point, and others are too risquÉ for the modern Mrs. Grundy. However, here is one which can offend no one: "August, 1814. The Wife of a respectable citizen has excited a good deal of curiosity at Margate. She bathes in a green dress, without a cap; and, attached to the shoulders of the dress is something resembling fins. She swims remarkably well, and the peculiarity of her paraphernalia, together with her long black hair, have occasioned many to believe that she was a mermaid."

Women were not, as a rule, what we should now term, highly educated: they knew very little of the "ologies," but they were good women, and true. Their music had not reached the sublime height of the weird discord of Wagner, and they knew nothing of the "Higher Cult;" but they had as pretty ballads to sing as ever were sung, from which we are glad to borrow, and which are refreshing to hear. They did beautiful needlework, and vied with each other in this respect, they painted a little on velvet and satin—sometimes did a little mild water colour on paper—but their efforts were hardly commendable as works of art, according to our modern standard. But they were notable house wives, and there were female servants in those days who were not above their position, but knew their work, and did it. There were no five o'clock teas, no reception days; all had their circle of acquaintances, who were welcome to call whenever they chose, and were received without fuss: in fact, as a rule, the women were helps-meet for their spouses—thrifty, caring for their husbands and children, and were, essentially, home makers.

In the Country, the whir of the spinning-wheel might be heard—but such a thing is not to be seen in use now except in dilletante hands, like those of Her Most gracious Majesty. Then, too, at a Cottage door might be seen a woman making pillow lace, now getting rarer and rarer, and it is not an occupation much taken up by the higher classes, as it shows small results for much hand-and-brain work. Straw-plaiting in some districts, glove sewing in others. Now we get straw plait from China, and the gloves are machine sewn. Then all the milk carrying, especially in London, was done by a hardy race of women, principally Welsh, carrying yokes and pails, now the Milk Cart and Perambulator have superseded them.

And there must have been women of thews and muscle, with plenty of pluck, or we should not hear of so many female sailors, and soldiers, during this period. In May, 1813, one was taken on board an American prize, and her sex was only discovered on her being sent to prison. In September of the same year, the master of a Collier, belonging to Ipswich, had reason to believe that one of his apprentices who had made two voyages, was a girl, and so it proved, and, as in the former case, the girl appeared to be a respectable, steady, young man, so in this latter, whilst she was on board, she conducted herself with great propriety, and was considered a very active clever lad. Again, in September, 1815, when the Crew of the Queen Charlotte, 110 guns, was paid off, one of the Crew, an African, was discovered to be a woman. She "had served as a seaman in the Royal Navy for upwards of eleven years, during several of which she had been rated able on the books of the above ship, by the name of William Brown, and had served for sometime as Captain of the foretop, highly to the satisfaction of the officers."

But the ladies did not confine themselves to "ploughing the main." We know what an attraction a red coat has for them, and therefore no surprise need be manifested, if some of them tried the Army. In January, 1813, was a rather romantic case: a girl, in man's clothes, was enlisted in the 53rd Regiment. Her sex was afterwards discovered when she said her lover was in the 43rd Regiment on foreign service, and she wanted to be near him. In 1814, Old Phoebe Hassel was alive, and at Brighton, aged 99. She had served in the army for seven years. I do not know when she died, but there is a portrait and biography of her in Hone's "Year Book," ed. 1838, pp. 209, 210, 211, 212, in which she is spoken of as being 106 in 1821. The Regent, after seeing her in 1814, allowed her half a guinea a week, and at her death ordered a stone to be put up to her memory. Another woman who had served five years in the German army, applied for relief to the German Committee at Baker's Coffee-house—she had been several times wounded, but was so badly hit at Leipsig, that she had to be taken to hospital, where her sex was discovered.

Women were then even as now, they aped the manners of the stronger sex. Now as we know, they invade the Smoking and Billiard Rooms, which used to be considered Man's strongholds; they won't let him alone even when shooting—for, so solicitous are they after his welfare, that they will bring him lunch: they run him hard in School Board, and County Council, and his last refuge is his Club, where, in some instances, he is not safe. We have seen how (vol. i. p. 86) they played Cricket publicly—a practice lately revived by "Actresses" and others. We know them well on the river, but I do not know of a revival of professional boat racing by them, so I give the following:

"Female Rowing Match.—A rowing match took place on Monday (September 29, 1817), on the river, between Chelsea and Battersea, which excited great interest. Six watermen's wives started in six scullers, to row a given distance for a wherry. The ladies were dressed in appropriate trimmings, and the boats were discriminated by different colours waving gracefully in the wind, at the stern. In the first heat two of the Candidates were distanced. The remaining four then started, and the prize was won, at two heats, by a strapping woman, the mother of four children. At the moment of her arrival at the goal, her victory was proclaimed by the discharge of a pistol by the Judge on shore, and she was carried in triumph into a public-house on the beach. No jolly young waterman could handle his oar with more becoming dexterity than this dashing female. Her numerous friends crowded after her, and drank her health in copious libations."

They were equal to us even in "Female Pedestrianism. Esther Crozier, who commenced on Wednesday (29th of October, 1817) morning, on the Croydon road, to walk 1000 miles in 20 days, completed 50 miles that evening, at 35 minutes past 9. She commenced her second day's journey yesterday morning (October 30th) at a quarter before 7 o'clock, and, at a quarter past 4 she had gone 32¾ miles." She is mentioned again and again in the papers as going on with her task; but I do not think she accomplished it, as I find no triumphal record of it.

I suppose the proudest day of a woman's life is her Marriage day, and so we will talk about Marriage in these times. A trip over the border was a common event, but the smith who forged the matrimonial fetters at Gretna Green, was not always a common individual. Early in January, 1811, one of them, Joseph Paisley, died, at the ripe age of seventy-nine. He was by vocation a salmon-fisher, and a brandy drinker of such capacity, that he could drink a pint of brandy at a draught, without its having any appreciable effect upon him: he and a brother toper, between them, drank ten gallons of brandy in three days. He was a foul-mouthed blackguard, but he served his purpose of marrying runaway couples, as well as a better man, and his marriages were just as valid. He obtained the honour of an obituary notice in the London Daily Papers, the Annual Register, and the Lady's Magazine, in which he is also perpetuated by a copper-plate portrait—so that he must have been considered somebody.

These were not the only curious marriages of that time; take this as a sample (August 23, 1815): "The Naked Truth.—A scene of a singular and disgraceful nature took place a few days ago at Grimsby. A widow, under the impression of indemnifying her second, from the debts of her first husband, proceeded out of the window, in a state of nudity, where she was received into the arms of her intended, in the presence of two substantial witnesses." This is a curious old tradition—the origin of which I must quote from myself.[35] "This is not uncommon, the object being, according to a vulgar error, to exempt the husband from the payment of any debts his wife may have contracted in her ante-nuptial condition. This error seems to have been founded on a misconception of the law, because it is laid down (Bacon's Abridgement, Tit. Baron and Feme) that 'the husband is liable for the wife's debts, because he acquires an absolute interest in the personal estate of the wife,' &c. An unlearned person, from this, might conclude, and not unreasonably, that, if his wife had no estate whatever, he could not incur any liability."

One more little story about Matrimony in those times, and I have done. "A young man, having long wooed a buxom damsel, at last found a moment so favourable, that he persuaded her to accompany him to a Scotch Justice of the Peace, to have the ceremony performed between them. They stood very meekly under the operation until the Magistrate was laying the damsel under obligations to obey her husband. 'Say no more about that, Sir,' said the half-made husband, 'if this hand remains upon this body, I'll make her obey me!'—'Are we married yet?' said the exasperated maiden to the ratifier of Covenants between man and woman. 'No,' said the wondering Justice. 'Ah! very well,' cried she, enraptured, 'we will finish the remainder to-morrow!' and away skipped the damsel, congratulating herself on her narrow escape.