our Vestry is of any utility; but our own
conclusion is, that it is of the use to the Borough
that a diminishing mirror is to a Painter, as
enabling it to perceive in a small focus of
absurdity all the surface defects of the real
original. We wish our Vestry long life, therefore,
in continuing to play at Parliament.
One of these days, when it gets a very good
subject for the game, we may become, for
the occasion, its faithful Hansard.

SHAWLS.

IN that part of Asia where some of our
brave countrymen have penetrated only to
die—in that country where Charles Stoddart
and his friend Conolly, whose faces will
never be forgotten by some of us, and whose
voices still sound in our ears, consoled each
other through a loathsome imprisonment,
and went out together to lose their heads
in the market-place of the capital; in that
distant and impracticable country of Bokhara,
which we are ready to say we will never have
any connexion with—there are people always
employed in our service. We are not now
thinking of the Bokhara clover, which is
such a treat to our cows and horses. We
owe that, and lucerne, and others of our
green crops, to the interior of Asia; but we
are thinking of something more elaborate.
In Bokhara, the camel is watched while the
fine hair on the belly is growing: this fine
hair is cut off so carefully that not a fibre
is lost; it is put by until there is enough to
spin into a yarn, unequalled for softness;
and then it is dyed all manner of bright
colours, and woven in strips eight inches
wide of shawl patterns such as—with all our
pains and cost, with all our Schools of Design
and study of nature and art—we are not yet
able to rival. These strips are then sewn
together so cunningly that no European can
discover the joins. The precious merchandise
is delivered to traders who receive it on
credit. On their return from market they
pay the price of the shawls at the Bokhara
value, with 30 per cent. interest: or, if they
cannot do this in consequence of having been
robbed, or of any other misfortune, they stay
away, and are never seen again in their native
land.

Where is this market? So far away
from home that the traders wear out their
clothes during their journey; and their fair
skins become as brown as mulattoes. On,
on, on they go, day after day, month after
month, on their pacing camels, or beside
them, over table-lands, mounting one above
another; over grass, among rocks, over sand,
through snows; now chilled to the marrow by
icy winds; now scorched by sunshine, from
which there is no shelter but the flat cotton
caps, with which they thatch their bare
crowns: on, on, for fifteen thousand miles, to
the borders of Russia, to sell the shawls which
are to hang on ladies' shoulders in Hyde Park,
and where beauties most do congregate in
Paris and Vienna.

The passion for shawls among all women
everywhere is remarkable. In one country,
the shawl may flow from the head, like a
veil; in another, it hangs from the shoulders;
in another, it is knotted round the loins as a
sash; in yet another, it is swathed round the
body as a petticoat. Wherever worn at all,
it is the pet article of dress. From a time
remote beyond computation, the sheep of
Cashmere have been cherished on their hills,
and the goats of Thibet on their plains, and
the camels of Tartary on their steppes, to
furnish material for the choicest shawls.
From time immemorial, the patterns which
we know so well have been handed down
as a half-sacred tradition through a Hindoo
ancestry, which puts even Welsh pedigrees
to shame. For thousands of years have the
bright dyes, which are the despair of our
science and art, been glittering in Indian
looms, in those primitive pits under the
palm-tree where the whimsical patterns grow,
like the wild flower springing from the soil. For
thousands of years have Eastern potentates
made presents of shawls to distinguished
strangers, together with diamonds and pearls.

At this day, when an Eastern prince sends
gifts to European sovereigns, there are shawls,
to the value of thousands of pounds, together
with jewels, perfumes, and wild beasts, and
valuable horses; just as was done in the days
of the Pharaohs, as the paintings on Egyptian
tombs show us at this day. And the subjects
of sovereigns have as much liking for shawls
as any queen. At the Russian Court, the
ladies judge one another by their shawls as
by their diamonds. In France, the bridegroom
wins favour by a judicious gift of
this kind. In Cairo and Damascus, the gift
of a shawl will cause almost as much heart-
burning in the harem as the introduction of
a new wife. In England, the daughter of the
house spends the whole of her first quarter's
allowance in the purchase of a shawl. The
Paris grisette, and the London dressmaker
go to their work with the little shawl pinned
neatly at the waist. The lost gin-drinker
covers her rags with the remnants of the
shawl of better days. The farmer's daughter
buys a white cotton shawl, with a gay
border, for her wedding; and it washes and
dyes until, having wrapped all her babies
in turn, it is finally dyed black to signalise
her widowhood. The maiden-aunt, growing
elderly, takes to wearing a shawl in the
house in mid-winter; and the granny would
no more think of going without it at any
season than without her cap. When son or
grandson comes home from travel, far or
near, his present is a new shawl, which she
puts on with deep consideration; parting with
the old one with a sigh. The Manchester
or Birmingham factory girl buys a gay shawl
on credit, wears it on Sunday, puts it in pawn
on Monday morning, and takes it cut again