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ON COALHEAVERS.


Although in this age of all but universal hypocrisy and make-believe,
every man has at least two fashions of one countenance, it is in dress
principally that most men are most unlike themselves. But the coalheaver
always sticks close to the attire of his station; he alone wears the
consistent and befitting garb of his forefathers; he alone has not
discarded "the napless vesture of humility," to follow the always
expensive, and often absurd fashions of his superiors. All ungalled of
him is each courtier's heel or great man's kibe. Yet, is not even his
every-day clothing unseemly, or his aspect unprepossessing. He casts
as broad and proper a shadow in the sun as any other man. Black he is,
indeed, but comely, like the daughters of Jerusalem.--To begin with the
hat which he has honoured with a preference--what are your operas or
your fire-shovels beside it? they must instantly (on a fair comparison)
sink many degrees below zero in the scale of contempt. In a word, I
would make bold to assert that it unites in perfection the two grand
requisites of a head covering, beauty and comfort. Gentlemen may smile
at this if they will, and take exception to my taste; but, I ask, does
the modern round hat, whatever the insignificant variations of its form,
possess either quality? No, not a jot of it. One would think, by our
pertinacious adherence to the head-ach giving, circular conformation,
that we wished to show our anger at the Almighty for not shaping our
caputs like cylinders. In fine, though the parson's and the quaker's hat
has each its several merits, commend me to the fan-tailed _shallow_.
The flap part attached to the cap seems, at first sight, as to use,