themselves into it, with a stiff, square collar touching the ears, and
seven capes, one over the other, "small by degrees and beautifully
less," and all respectable gentlemen will accept it, and virtuously
frown down, as dandies or rowdies, those who will not sacrifice their
shawls to the ugly idol.




A GROWL.


I know it is generally considered decidedly boorish to utter
complaints against the ladies. But I am for the present a bachelor,
and in that capacity claim freedom of speech as my peculiar privilege.
In virtue of my unhappy position, then, I proceed to utter the first
of a series of savage growls, wishing the ladies to understand me as
fully in earnest in this; that when I growl _loud_, I must be supposed
to _mean_ what I growl.

For a month past, single gentlemen of every description have suffered
in common with other fancy stocks, and have remained hopelessly below
par. Those nice, trim, poetical, and polite young beaux, who, when no
great undertaking agitates the female mind, are treated with kindness,
and sometimes with distinction, by young ladies of discretion, are
now, as it were, ruthlessly thrust and bolted out of the pale of
feminine society by an awful demon who reigns supreme,--the Genius of
Dress-making. The other evening, I pulled sixteen different
bell-handles, in a gentlemanly manner, without obtaining admission
into any house for the purpose of making a call; and when I succeeded