determine, how many inches of the leg or neck may lawfully be exposed, how many court'sies at a public place amount to an acquaintance, and what are the precise privileges of birth or fortune, that entitle the possessors to give routs or drums, on week-days or on Sundays. Whoever should presume to transgress against these laws, might be punished suitably to their offences; and be banished from public places, or be condemned to do penance in linsey-woolsey: or if any female should be convicted of immodesty, she might be outlawed; and then (as these laws would not bind the nymphs of Drury) we should easily distinguish a modest woman, as the phrase is, if not by her looks, at least by her dress and appearance; and the victorious Fanny might then be suffered to strike bold strokes without rivalry or imitation. If any man too should be found so grossly offending against the laws of fashion as to refuse a member a bow at a play or a salute at a wedding, how suitably would he be punished by being reprimanded on his knees in such an assembly, and by so fine a woman as we may suppose. the speaker would be? Then doubtless would a grand committee sit on the affair of hoops; and were they established in their present form by proper authority, doors and boxes might be altered and enlarged accordingly. Then should we talk as familiarly of the visit bill as of the marriage bill; and with what pleasure should we peruse the regulations of the committee of dress? Every lover of decorum would be pleased to hear, that refractory females were taken into custody by the usher of the black fan: The double return of a visit would occasion as many debates as the double return for a certain county; and at the eve of an election, how pretty would it be to see the ladies of the shire going about, mounted on their white palfreys, and canvassing for votes. Till this great purpose is attained, I see not how the visible enormities in point of dress, and failures in point of ceremony, can effectually be prevented. But then, and not before, I shall hope to see politeness and good breeding distinguished from formality and affectation, and dresses invented that will improve, not diminish the charms of the fair, and rather become than disguise the wearers. I am, Sir, yours, &c. TIMOTHY CANVASS. I am much obliged to my correspondent for his letter, and heartily wish that this scheme was carried into execution. The liberties daily taken in point of dress demand proper restrictions. The ancients settled their national habit by law but the dress of our own country is so very fluctuating, that if the great grandmothers of the present generation were to arise, they would not be able to guess at their posterity from their dress, but would fancy themselves in a strange country. As these affairs fall more immediately under the cognizance of the ladies, the female world in general would soon be sensible of the advantages accruing from a female parliament: and though ladies of fashion might probably claim some peculiar liberties in dress by their privilege, it might naturally be expected that this. wise assembly would at least keep the rest of the sex in order; nor suffer enormous hoops to spread themselves across the whole pavement, to the detriment of all honest men going upon business along the street; nor permit the chandler's wife to retail half-quarterns from behind the counter, in a short stomacher and without an handkerchief. I am aware that a considerable objection may be brought against this scheme: to wit, that a female parliament (like those of the men) may be subject to corruption, and made dependent on a court. The enormous Elizabeth ruff, and the awkward queen of Scots mob, are fatal instances of the evil influence, which courts have upon fashions: and as no one can tell the power, which a British queen might have over the councils of a female parliament, future ages might perhaps see the stays bolstered out into hump-backs, or the petticoats let down to conceal a bandy leg, from the same servile complaisance which warped the necks of Alexander's courtiers. But though a parliament on the foregoing scheme has not yet taken place, an institution of the like nature has been contrived among the order of females, who (as I mentioned in a former paper) advertise for gentlemen to play at cards with them. The reader may remember, that some time ago an advertisement appeared in the public papers, from the Covent-Garden Society; in which it was set forth, that one of their members was voted common. This very society is composed of these agreeable young ladies, whose business it is to play at cards with those gentlemen, who have good-nature and fortune sufficient to sit down contented with being losers. It is divided, like the upper and lower Houses of Parliament, into Ladies and Commons. The upper order of card-players take their seats according to the rank of those who game at high stakes with them; while the Commons are made up of the lower sort of gamblers within the hundreds of Drury and Covent-Garden. Every one is obliged to pay a certain tax out of her card-money; and the revenue arising from it is applied to the levying of hoop-petticoats, sacks, petenlairs, caps, handkerchiefs, aprons, &c. to be issued out nightly according to the exigence and degree of the members. Many revolutions have happened in this society since its institution: A commoner in the space of a few weeks has been called up to the House of Ladies; and another, who at first sat as peeress, has been suddenly degraded, and voted common. More particulars of this society have not come to my knowledge: but their design seems to be, to erect a commonwealth of themselves, and to rescue their liberties from being invaded by those who have presumed to tyrannize over them. If this practice of playing their own cards, and shuffling for themselves, should generally prevail among all the agreeable young gamesters of Covent-Garden, I am concerned to think what will become of the venerable sisterhood of Douglas, Haddock, and Noble, as well as the fraternity of Harris, Derry, and the rest of those gentlemen, who have hitherto acted as groom-porters, and had the principal direction of the game. From such a combination it may greatly be feared, that the honourable profession of pimp will in a short time become as useless as that of a Fleet-parson. N° 50. THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1755. Vita Percipit humanos odium, lucisque videnda, LUCRET. O deaf to nature, and to Heav'n's command!- THE last sessions deprived us of the only surviving member of a society, which (during its short existence) was equal both in principles and practice to the Mohocks and Hell-Fire-Club of tremendous memory. This society was composed of a few broken gamesters and desperate young rakes, who threw the small remains of their bankrupt fortunes into one common stock, and thence assumed the name of the Last Guinea Club. A short life and a merry one was their favourite maxim; and they determined, when their finances should be quite exhausted, to die as they had lived, like gentlemen. Some of their members had the luck to get a reprieve by a good run at cards, and others by snapping up a rich heiress or a dowager; while the rest, who were not cut off in the natural way by duels or the gallows, very resolutely made their quietus with laudanum or the pistol. The last that remained of this society had very calmly prepared for his own execution: he had cocked his pistol, deliberately placed the muzzle of it to his temple, and was just going to pull the trigger, when he bethought himself that he could employ it to better purpose upon Hounslow Heath. This brave man, however, had but a very short respite, and was obliged to suffer the ignominy of going out of the world in the vulgar way by an halter. The enemies of play will perhaps consider those gentlemen, who boldly stake their whole fortunes at the gaming-table, in the same view with these desperadoes; and they may even go so far as to regard the polite and honourable assembly at White's as a kind of Last Guinea Club. Nothing, they will say, is so fluctuating as the property of a gamester, who (when luck runs against him) throws away whole acres at every cast of the dice, and whose houses are as unsure a possession, as if they were built with cards. Many, indeed, have been reduced to their last guinea at this genteel gaming-house; but the most inveterate enemies to White's must allow, that it is but now and then, that a gamester of quality, who looks upon it as a tossup whether there is another world, takes his chance, |