Part 6
The influence of clothing upon character has long been recognized, but I do not remember ever to have heard of another case so well illustrating that influence as the case of Mr. Shirtless. His story of his experiences was profoundly interesting from a psychological point of view, and while reading it I conceived the plan of which I spoke just now. It occurred to me that the influence of dress might be of great use in reforming men of evil habit and temperament. It is well known to all social workers that many criminals cherish a spirit of bitter animosity toward society at large, and that not a few habitual criminals have embarked upon a career of crime urged on by the mistaken belief that the hand of every man was against them. Having once plunged into evil ways, these misguided creatures come to be more and more of the opinion that they are not as other men; that they have lost for all time to come any hope of being treated with respect and that they must live and die outside the pale of respectability.
It must be confessed that the treatment now accorded them, both in jail and after their release, lends some color of truth to this conviction. To win these men back to a useful way of life it is only necessary to show them that they are wrong; that a temporary fall from grace does not involve an eternal and perpetual atonement. They must be made to feel that they are still members of the Brotherhood of Man and that they may again become members in good standing. Once they are convinced of this, they will certainly mend their ways and gladly conform to right standards of living. Society is coming to realize, as it never did before, that the true purpose of imprisonment is to reform, and not to punish; that our criminals and law-breakers are susceptible to the same methods as our children, and that our proceedings against them should be corrective, rather than retaliatory. These men are sick, sick in mind if not in body, and it is the duty of the state to reclaim them.
In consequence of this awakening to the real purpose of imprisonment, many of our prisons have given up the hideous practise of dressing convicts in the degrading and brutalizing uniforms which were formerly so common as to be almost universal in penal institutions. Men have pretty generally come to see that the use of the striped zebra-like suit for prisoners was a mistake; an added infamy which served no good purpose, but only deepened the convict’s sense of shame and resentment. But though the old garb for prisoners is rapidly becoming obsolete, all reform of this character has, so far, been negative in its nature. The method which I propose is positive. Why should we be content with relieving the convicts of their shameful uniforms? Why not go a step further and institute a constructive reform in their dress? Why not array them in such a fashion that their self-respect must be reawakened and their sense of responsibility quickened into life? Why not bring to bear upon their characters the influence of clean linen and a respectable wardrobe?
What I propose, Mr. _Idler_, is just this: Let every convict and prisoner be clad in clothing suitable for a substantial citizen and a respected member of the community. Let every inmate of our prisons and penitentiaries be supplied each week with a liberal allowance of clean linen and underwear. Let every man of them be furnished with a decent wardrobe; say, two or three business suits of good quality and correct cut, a walking-coat or frock for afternoon wear, evening dress, a silk hat and a dinner coat. We already provide for them good books to elevate their minds; let us now give them such attire as will increase their respect for their persons.
Now, there is no denying that a well-dressed man makes a better impression upon strangers than a sloven; and if this is true of strangers, what shall we say of the effect upon the man himself? While few of us are so strongly affected as Mr. Shirtless, yet we are all of us, I think, affected in some degree. A pleasing image in a mirror increases our self-respect, but when we see ourselves unkempt and ill-clad we are ashamed. When we have made our prisoners presentable, I believe we should give them the satisfaction of seeing how much they are improved, and I therefore suggest that a mirror be placed in each cell where the inmate can see himself at full length. Thus, if in spite of his new outfit he occasionally feels a disposition to backslide, he has only to glance into the glass to be restored to respectability. In this way he can be led to see the possibilities within him. Let a man look into a looking-glass and see there a reflection which might well be that of a statesman, and his subconsciousness will at once inquire _why not_? The inspiring sight will reawaken his ambition.
Though it will be a great step forward to dress these convicts like decent citizens, yet this is hardly enough. There must be a corresponding reform in their occupations and employments. There is certainly something incongruous in the thought of a man clad in a frock coat and silk hat breaking stones with a hammer. Such a thing must appear bizarre even to the dullest of these unfortunates. To keep them at such labor would seem as if we were making sport of them. It will therefore be advisable to devise for each inmate of our prisons some employment which will be in keeping with his clothes and, at the same time, congenial and respectable. Here is a man, let us say, who has been convicted of larceny. We will make a promoter of him. Here is another who has been sentenced for gambling. He would make a good broker. A third, who has been an anarchist, will make a good magazine editor. A fourth, confined for highway robbery, can be transformed into a hotel proprietor. And so on down the list.
Of course it will be necessary to release some of them upon parole when the time comes for them to begin the practise of their professions, but by the time they have mastered the details of their new callings this will probably be safe enough. If a carpenter has been sent to prison for burglary, it is not reasonable to keep him employed at the same trade while in confinement, for then he is released knowing no more--and no better off--than he was when incarcerated. Perhaps it was carpentry which drove him to crime. No, Mr. _Idler_, we should elevate him.
As for those who are merely dissolute and idle, we will make gentlemen of them. We will dress them in the latest fashion and establish for them a club where they may follow their natural bent and continue in their usual habits, only now with the sanction of society.
If the system I have outlined should be adopted in all of our prisons, Sir, I see no reason why our convicts should not soon be a credit to the community.
I am, Sir, AL. TRUIST.
MR. BODY PROTESTS
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: It is with a feeling of dismay--nay, I may even say terror--that I read in my morning paper the statement that during last year there were made and sold in the United States no less than 8,644,537,090 cigarettes! Nearly nine billion of these devil’s torches, or almost one hundred of them for every man, woman and child throughout the country. And not only that, but an increase of 150,000,000 cigars and 15,000,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco over the production of the preceding year.
To what, Sir, is this country coming, when such things are possible? Can it be that the whole nation is bent upon suicide? I have read that a single drop of the pure essense of nicotine dropped upon the back of a healthy and robust flea will cause the unfortunate beast to fall into convulsions, frequently terminating in a partial paralysis or total dissolution. Now, it is well known to all who make the slightest pretense to any knowledge of entomology that the flea, or _Pulex irritans_, is one of the most hardy insects known to man and is extremely hard to kill. Indeed, it is a matter of record that the fleas of Mexico encountered the army of Bonaparte and Maximilian and gave such a good account of themselves that the French soldiers were more in awe of the fleas than of the natives. If nicotine, then, has such a disastrous effect upon such a hearty and well-protected beast as the flea, what must be the effect of its poison upon man, who is, perhaps, the most easily killed of all living creatures? It is too horrible to contemplate! I have, by most careful calculations, proved to my entire satisfaction that the American people have already been totally exterminated through their persistence in this evil habit of using tobacco; and if, as may be said, the facts do not seem to fit in with my figures, I can only say that I am convinced that their survival is in nowise due either to their hardiness or to the innocuous character of the herb, but solely to the kindly interposition of Providence, who, unwilling to see so young and so promising a nation perish by reason of this folly, has deliberately set at naught the wiles of the Devil and robbed him of his prey by fortifying and strengthening the constitutions of this people to withstand the dread effects of this evil practise. But how long can people given over to this wicked practise look to Providence for patience and protection?
I have but now spoken of the American people as a promising nation, but I am not sure but that I should amend this to “a once promising nation.” I believe that this nation can never become truly great until it has become a nation of non-smokers. Did the Greeks smoke? No. Did the Romans smoke? No, again. Not in the history of any of the great nations of antiquity do I find a single reference to tobacco smoking. The Boers are reputed to be great smokers, and it is to this that I attribute their defeat at the hands of the English. I have heard that the Boers even went into battle with their pipes alight, and I have no doubt that it was due to their distraction and lack of attention caused by their habit of scratching matches to keep their pipes burning, that they lost many important engagements. Do you imagine, Sir, that Troy could have withstood the assault of the Greeks for ten long years, had Hector and his fellow warriors lolled upon the battlements puffing on cigarettes? Can you fancy, Sir, the grave and dignified Cicero pausing in the midst of one of his philippics to expectorate tobacco juice? Yet I am told upon good authority that this may be witnessed among the learned justices of our own Supreme Court.
The almost total destruction of the American Indian, I attribute chiefly to the debilitating effects of this narcotic. Of all of the American Indians, the Peruvians attained the highest state of civilization. And why? Because, Sir, they alone used tobacco only as a medicine and in the form of snuff. Had they forborne the use of snuff, it might well have been that the Incas had conquered the Spanish and colonized the coast of Europe. Snuff, I consider the least harmful of all forms of tobacco; but only because it is the least frequently used. There is a lady of my acquaintance, in all other respects a most estimable woman, who so far forgets her duty as a mother as to permit her offspring to utilize as a plaything a handsome silver snuff-box which she inherited from her grandfather. I, Sir, should as soon think of giving my children a whisky-flask for a toy. I am well aware that many who have been termed “gentlemen” have been addicted to the use of snuff; nay, that it was even at one time a fashion among men and women of the mode to partake of it. But I think none the better of it for that. As much might be said for rum.
Lord Chesterfield said that he was enabled to get through the last five or six books of Virgil by having frequent recourse to his snuff-box; but I say, if the taking of snuff is necessary to the enjoyment of Virgil, why then, it were better never to read that poet. I had rather fall asleep over Virgil than to inhale culture tainted with snuff. I had rather, indeed, snore over the classics, than sneeze at them. _Trahit sua quemque voluptas_--I suspect that his Lordship did not so much find snuff an aid to Virgil as Virgil an excuse for snuff.
Tobacco, Sir, won its way into Europe by a ruse--a pretense. It wormed its way into the confidence of the European peoples masquerading as a medicine--a panacea. Introduced by Francesco Fernandez, himself a renowned physician, and endorsed by many other men supposed to be learned in _materia medica_, it was taken on faith and retained through weakness. At the very outset some of the wiser heads saw the danger of it. Burton sounded a note of warning in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_: “Tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones, is a sovereign remedy in all disease. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medically used; but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ’tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purge of goods, lands, health,--hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.”
King James, of blessed memory, was not deceived by the fictitious virtues of this plant, and he condemned it in his noble work, _The Counterblaste_. Would that more had been so blessed with wisdom!
The absurdity of the extravagant claims made for the curative powers of this herb is well illustrated in the words of Master Nicholas Culpepper, author of _The English Physitian_, published so late as 1671:
“It is a Martial plant (governed by Mars). It is found by good experience to be available to expectorate tough Flegm from the Stomach, Chest and Lungs.... The seed hereof is very effectual to expel the toothach, & the ashes of the burnt herb, to cleanse the Gums and make the Teeth white. The herb bruised and applied to the place grieved by the Kings-Evil, helpeth it in nine or ten days effectually. _Manardus_, faith, it is a Counter-Poyson against the biting of any Venomous Creatures; the Herb also being outwardly applyd to the hurt place. The Distilled Water is often given with some Sugar before the fit of Ague to lessen it, and take it away in three or four times using.”
Such vaporings were, indeed, as little worthy of credence as the empty chatter of Ben Jonson’s Bobadil: “Signor, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies (where this herb grows), where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it can not be but ’tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence it should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak.... I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.”
Such were the absurd claims of those who held tobacco to be a medicine. But I contend, Sir, that tobacco has never been proven of any real medical value whatever; that it is a poison and not a blessing. I have been told, indeed, that it sometimes destroys the toothache; but for my own part I had rather taste the toothache than tobacco; and as for deadening the pain, so, for that matter, will opium or prussic acid.
I contend, Sir, that tobacco will eventually bring to grief every nation which makes use of it. Who can contemplate the present distressing state of Portugal without recalling that it was from Jean Nicot, a Portuguese, that the poison, nicotine, received its name?
Tobacco destroys all that is noble in man. There is no more noble sentiment than chivalry; and tobacco has destroyed the chivalry of man. How else could we applaud that English poet who sang,
“A thousand surplus Maggies are waiting to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke”?
Tobacco is offensive to all high-minded people of delicate sensibilities; it is offensive to me. Nay, the smoker himself sometimes involuntarily recoils from his slavery and feels disgust for the vile weed, as is shown by the cry of the modern poet, whose name for the moment escapes me, in that line--
“Then, as you love me, take the stubs away!”
Oh, Sir, it is now high time for all men of sound judgment and unselfish nature to unite in stamping out this nefarious traffic! Let every state pass laws forbidding the manufacture, sale _and use_ of tobacco in any form. Let the government suppress with stringent law and heavy penalty that wicked and seductive book of J. M. Barrie’s called _My Lady Nicotine_; that work which has, without doubt, led many young men to contract this evil habit and confirmed many older men in it against their own better judgment. Let all books in praise of tobacco be destroyed publicly, as is befitting a public menace.
For my own part, having suffered all my life from a quinsy which I contracted early in youth, and which my family physician assured me would be greatly aggravated by the use of tobacco, I have been saved from the vile effects of even the slightest contact with that noxious plant. But, Sir, being a man of tender sensibilities and imbued with an almost paternal love of humanity, it has grieved me to the heart to see my fellow men falling ever deeper and deeper into the clutches of this sinful practise. Owing to the distress I suffer from the fumes of tobacco, I have often been compelled practically to abstain from the company of men, otherwise estimable citizens, who have contracted this habit. Everywhere I go I see young and old blowing out their brains with every puff of smoke, until I am sometimes tempted to blow out my own in sheer despair of ever making them see the evil of their ways. And they smoke, Sir, with such an air of innocent enjoyment as is enough to fair madden one whose counsel they scorn and at whose warnings they scoff.
I have been told, Sir, that you are, yourself, a victim of this evil habit of tobacco using, and I have been warned that you will refuse, with the infatuation of a confirmed smoker, to grant me space in your publication for these honest and unprejudiced expressions of opinion upon this subject. I have refused, however, to credit these scandalous reflections upon your character, and I hope that you will refute them and cause the utter confusion of your calumniators, as well as help enlighten an ignorant and misguided people, by printing this communication in full.
I am, Sir, very truly yours, B. Z. BODY.
ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FASHION WRITERS
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: Some writers have an unhappy faculty of adopting a superior tone which is very offensive to most readers. Even in a writer of acknowledged excellence this dictatorial style is a blemish, and, moreover, it is an impertinence. Not only does the writer assume to be superior to the majority of his readers, but, by implication, to all the world, since his book is addressed to mankind at large. And if this air of condescension is hard to bear from men of parts, how much more galling it is when we suffer it at the hands of insolent nobodies--writers who seek to hide their obscurity behind the shield of an imposing pseudonym. I have in mind, Sir, that pestiferous crew who mar the pages of our theater programs with their uninvited discourses upon men’s fashions.
It may be that I am confessing to an unmanly weakness when I confess that I invariably peruse that column in my program which is signed _Beau Nash_, _Beau Brummel_, or something equally ridiculous; but if it is a weakness, I am convinced that it is one which is shared by nine out of ten men in the audience. I say I am convinced, because, suspecting that I might be alone in it, I took the trouble to observe the men about me upon several occasions, and I always caught them at it at some time during the intermissions. They read it furtively, to be sure, but they read it none the less. Of course, I can not be sure what effect these essays upon sartorial matters have upon others, but I fancy they are affected much as I am, and for my part they distress me exceedingly.
In the first place, I am not overly pleased that some unknown hack writer has assumed to instruct me in such a personal matter as the clothes which I put upon my back, and in the second place, I strongly resent the implication that I am interested in such foppish literature. But, what is worse than all else, these anonymous arbiters of dress are continually putting me out of countenance by criticizing explicitly and in detail the very clothes that I have on! It seems to me that these fellows have a devilish faculty of knowing beforehand just what I shall be wearing every season.
Now, Mr. _Idler_, you must not suppose that I am one of those silly fellows who aspire to lead the fashion or to play the dandy, for, indeed, I am nothing of the sort. I do not believe there is a man living who more heartily despises those empty-headed creatures who are variously known as fops, dudes and dandies. It has never been my ambition to be the introducer of a new style of neckwear or footgear; indeed, I fear my very indifference to such matters lays me open to the vexation caused by these miserable scribblers who prey upon my peace of mind. Were I in the habit of consulting long and earnestly with my tailor and haberdasher, no doubt I should be fortified with a sound and sure confidence in the appropriateness of my apparel. But the fact is, I leave these things largely to the men who make a business of them, and content myself with choosing what seems to me to be sufficiently modish and yet in good taste.
And yet, Sir, though I am no macaroni, I am not utterly indifferent to my personal appearance. If I am not a fop, neither am I a sloven. I am one of those who have faith in the old saying, _In medio tutissimus ibis_. I would not be
“The first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
Like most practical men, I have a positive horror of appearing queer. I shun eccentricity in dress as assiduously as I shun eccentricity in manners. I sometimes envy poets and artists, not for their poetry or their art, but for that sublime egotism which enables them to take pleasure in making themselves ridiculous. This seems to me a vanity which is almost beautiful, a self-confidence which is a greater blessing than personal bravery. Many a man, otherwise not extraordinary, may prove himself a hero of physical courage when the occasion offers, but few there are who can deliberately challenge attention by their freakish appearance and go out among their fellow men with an air which seems to say, “I know I look like the devil and I am proud of it.”