This brings Its immediately to the considera tion of underclothing. which is almost wholly a thing of modern concern. The ehiton of the Greeks, the skirt of the Egyptians worn by either sex, the blanket-like wraps of the early inhabit ant- of America and of New Zealand, and the enveloping wraps of cotton or similar stuff of the Malays of Java and Sumatra. although scrvinr. as an aid to personal cleanliness, are the outer as well as the inner garment. But one garment is worn, or hut two in all. one of which covers such parts of the body as are not covered by the other, With 44 course frequent occurrence of laps or dou ble ••?•?? ring- f, r certain part-. The description of the longer and the shorter etiiton the anisi I .1 the other garments ‘‘ hick are combined m 1th it in our pictorial :Intl plastic representa tions is given under the heading Cosrt also the exact service expect ed Of the ttinica remain- somewhat uncertain, because in the dress of the wealtlii.r and more powerful classes it is the toga only that is in question. and we know of the tunica mainly, if not altogether. as the one upper garment of slave:. or ns worn iiinb•r the armor of the soldiers. has come down to us as to the use of vinlerelothing in the incident sense. even by the Boman-. Of the most luxurious times of the Em pire. The use of drawers, at least occasionally, is but this suspicion is founded only the cases of contorted bodies of victims of the eruption of A.n, 79, The use of drawer- or tronscrs, ill the more usual sense. that is to say. of leg-coverings (fusel(/' c•ttralcs), which were acknowledged as a part of the dress and were visible. v•as ecrtainly known to the Romans of the later Empire. who took it from the people of western _\ sia on the one hand, and from the hauls on the other: but it was for them rather the adoption of a foreign dress, it man was in foreign parts. than an addition to their own traditional costume.
We have to consider the lloman of position, ex cept in t he earliest days, as wearing a t 'mica which it was assumed uuul,l aliont reach to the knees. but which. judging by the few ancient represen tations which we have of it, was lunch fuller in the skirt than the Ore•k chino' or the modern shirt worn Ly either sex, Over this he wore the toga. With this exception his only garment was a protection for the foot in the form of sandal or slow. The number of togaii was. however, so very silmll, as compared with the vast number of slaves and freedmen employed ill out-of-door tasks, who had no right whatever to wear the toga. that the street. of any great city of the Empire must have seemed to he full of men wear ing very short gowns girded around the waist and reaching to the knees, with rough slows to protect the feet. and no other garment whatever: while the women, much fewer in numbers, would ap pear much as the li•o•n women of the West India Islands do to-day, in a single•long gown fastened at neck and and with low-heeled shoes. \Vhat the poorer people of Italy and of t;reeee wore in times of great cold. when the hod, actually needed to have its vital heat maintainer by warm clothes. not 110W ascertainable.
As long as the Boman Empire influenced strongly the life of the people of Gaul and Bri tain, these more northern communities thought baths. taken daily and with great preparation and
at leisure. the most precious of luxuries. The loss of the Ilmilan dominion, the breaking up of the people into small the eomparat ire poverty and disorder of the whole emintry. and the influence and XaMple Of the 111.11:1.tie orders. all tended to do away with the ancient of personal cleanliness. It has been pointed out very often that the first adoption of those under garments which to the modern world are essen tial is in the :lin contemporaneous with this abandonment of the ancient habit: of bathing the person. of the nature of stockings was known to the ancients. They covered their feet only as a protection against extreme cold; or, if legging was worn, it was the high military bus kin, for the express purpose of protecting the foot against injury. 111 like manner. the general use of the shirt a- a garment worn next the skin to proteet it from the woolen or leather outer garment begins with the tifth or sixth cen tury. From that time these two articles of cloth ing a re universally considered as essential throughout central and western Europe, although frequently exceptions occur. Even in the nine teenth eentury. English peasants are known to have worn stockings without feet— in other words, lucre leggings—anil the shirt might often disap pear in the ease of a man wearing a garment buttoning close around the body. Nir Walter Scott describes the dress of the men of the far western islands of in the seven teenth century as consisting of a single closely fitting garment covering trunk, arms, and thighs; ill other words, strongly resembling those of our modern bathing-dresses for men which are made in one piece. The gradual adoption by the peo ple of elegant life in the great cities of the fash ion \Odell involved the bringing into sight of a part of the shirt made this garment an obvious necessity than it had been. This be. •—.11 in the sixteenth century, and from that time this one undergarment has liven common in Eu rope. Cotton or linen coverings for the legs were, however, much later to collie into use, and very much less universal. _ks late as lsSO the most fashionable tailor in a large city of the south of France told the writer that. few of his customers wore drawers of any kind. and in answer to in quiries made in consequence of this statement in the north and centre of Italy a similar condition was admitted to exist along the shores of the Alediterrancan, even among persons of means. The dress of the poorer people, even the trades men and mechanics of the cities, continued throughout the nineteenth century as far removed from the ideal cane of the hotly by ablutions. and by washable underclothes frequently changed. as been the ease among the wealthy and elegant during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For that period. passage: ill many novels and essays of the time. two or three well known pas-age: ill l'epys's Diary, might be cited. In short, the conscious state of cleanliness into which a small minority of the people of European deseent have brought themselves, during the years beginning with IS30 or ISM. is in a way it -or ival of custonl: which had been almost for. gotten. sines the :\I(41iterranean land: were the centre of civilization.