Section X Painters’ Colours or Pigments, Hats, Broad Cloth, Kerseymeres, Linens, Laces, Cambrics, Silks, Jewellery, Stationary, &c.
The spirit of adulteration pursues poor John even into his domestic arrangements. Should he design to decorate his dwelling—“his neat suburban cottage”—and have the walls or wainscot of his drawing-room painted a delicate pink colour to rival the carnation tints of the cheek of his “cara sposa,” or those of his breakfast parlour, to imitate the lively blue of the bright eyes of his “lovely cherubs,” the vile sophisticators mar all his wishes, and he is able to obtain nothing else than dull and darkling daubs. In fewer words, he cannot obtain genuine colours wherewith to have his house painted. And this sophistication does not only extend to the common house-paints, (as where white lead is mixed with carbonate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion with red lead, and a long et-cetera;) but should honest John wish that his hopeful progeny may rival the Zeuxis or Apelles of antiquity, or confine his paternal longings to the more modern artists—a Reynolds, a Gainsborough, a Moreland, or a David,—he has the mortification of seeing his fond illusions dissipated by the adulterating manufacturers of ultramarine, carmine, lake, Antwerp blue, crome yellow, Indian ink, and all the other et-ceteras of artist-decoration.
The covering of even John’s sconce is not exempt from sophistication. In the room of the dear bought, far fetched beaver, the adulterators adorn John’s pate with a strange combination of wool and the homely and cheaply purchased fur of the rabbit and mole. This, it must be admitted, is cruel usage of the good old gentleman, and must, as the witty author of the Indicator says, bring to his mind an odd association of ideas, (namely, of cheatery and forgiveness,) in one of those communings with his hat’s lining, while, like a polite worshipper, he is whispering his preparatory ejaculations, before he turns round with due gravity and composure, and makes a bow of genteel recognition of the Mr. and Mrs A. and the Misses B. who have assembled in the pew before him.
Nor is he better treated by his clothier or man’s mercer. Not to mention the slight texture of the articles, and the substitution of inferior materials for the “best superfine Spanish” and the “super-extra Saxony,” the sly varlet artfully stitches the selvage of broad cloths, kerseymeres, and ladies’ “extra superfine,” dyed of a permanent colour, to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugative or fading dye; and this operation is performed with so much skill and nicety as to elude John’s most penetrating optics.
Neither are Mrs. Bull and her “lovely daughters” more exempt from the knaveries of the linen-draper, the dealers in laces, veils, silks, “Cashmere shawls,” French cambrics, and the other paraphernalia of the female wardrobe: they are all sophisticated, and often no more like the native article than “the moon is like green cheese.” Like “a true bred knight,” I shall not forget to furnish the female part of Mr. Bull’s family with the means and criteria for judging of the goodness of those commodities, in the work which, as I have before said, I have nearly ready for press. Nor shall I omit to take notice in the same publication, to give directions for the proper selection of the articles of furniture of the old gent’s house; such as feathers, blankets, carpets, &c. &c.
While gallantly professing my knight-errantry in the cause of Mrs. Bull and “her lovely daughters,” I find that I have made an unpardonable omission—not a word on laces and muslins! To propitiate their “kind consideration,” I hurry to supply the unpardonable omission. Let then every “lovely fair one” know that laces are now generally made from single cottons (instead of good double thread, as was formerly the case), and in order to make them look fine and clear, they are stiffened with starch, which occasions the delusive articles, as soon as they are washed, to fall to pieces. In some articles of lace, particularly veils, many of the springs and flowers are fastened on with gum, which, as soon as they are wetted, immediately fall off and betray the cheatery. Caps and other articles of female habiliments sold in the streets, are often united together in the most ingenious manner by means of gum or paste.
Muslins are not free from sophistication-ingenuity. Poor, thin, rough specimens are rendered stiff, high glazed, and thick with a quantum sufficit of pipe-clay, &c.; sometimes a paper-pulp is spread over the deteriorated article; and the fibres of the cotton which ought to be dressed off, are left in order to hold the composition put in.
Stockings are often rendered stiff and thick to the feet, by bleaching them with brimstone. And coarse woollen cloth receives the addition of large quantities of fuller’s-earth to give it body and closeness; while the right or pressed side is finished off with oil, in order to give the cloth a fine, soft, and smooth appearance. Never choose woollen cloth which is glossy and stiff.
“The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and their conversion into leather; and in the manufacture of cutlery and jewellery,” says Mr. Accum, “exceed belief.” And I can assure my readers that that gentleman is not mistaken in his assertion; and, had he added that of cabinet wares and silver plate of all sorts, he would not have over-stepped the limits of truth. To those acquainted with the manufacture of silver goods, it is well known that you cannot always be sure that the various costly articles are of the legal standard with which Pride and Vanity, Luxury and Fashion, when they “set up for Gentry and Stylish people,” and have a desire for “shewing off,” gratify their whims and fantastic notions of gentility, and their ambition of “outplating and outdishing” their friends and neighbours. The prosecution instituted some years ago against a “legitimate” son of Crispin for the manufacture of shoes, the soles of which were ingeniously united to the welts by only six stitches in each shoe, while the external parts of the soles exhibited evident traces of a multiplicity of stitches rivalling the number of the stars of the firmament of the heavens in extent and variety, and their exact mathematical precision seemed to display the exertion of the genius of a Euclid, cannot have slipped the recollection of all my readers.
And to complete the climax of sophistication, even the paper on which John gives birth to his “winged words,” and expresses his indignant feelings at the extent and the audacity of the frauds and impositions practised on his good-nature and credulous disposition, is sophisticated. In the manufacture of paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is often mixed up with the paper-stuff, instead of its consisting of good linen rags only, and the foreign substance is added to increase the weight of the commodity. Nor is he, when, like ourselves, desirous of having his thoughts and discoveries rendered “enduring for ages,” (monumentum ære perennius,) by having them cast in stereotype, and thus “save a penny,” exempt from the designs and contrivances of sophistication;—the founder deceives him by casting his “words that breathe and thoughts that burn” in a metal as soft and ductile as lollipop. Thus honest Bull is circumvented in all his intents, and surprised and overpowered at every turn by the Genius of Sophistication.