and an inconvenience to all. With what relish he must have watched the spread of his bad fashion from country to country, and thought how, when mankind have spent countless ages in rubbing off their tails, he in one short lifetime should have succeded in putting them on again! With what intense delight he must have heard our great pig-tailed orators- Our Burkes, and Wyndhams, and Pitts, and Foxes, and moralised upon the sublime and the ridiculous, only divided—as it, doubtless, occurred to him-by a mere hair's breadth; and listened to the noblest oratory, the most. impassioned eloquence this country ever produced, accompanied by the jerks of a pig-tail!

But the progress of tails amongst mankind must have been slow; so, probably, our humorist's joke was mostly prospective, and hung upon the fixing of tails upon generations yet unborn. He must have been a poker of posthumous fun, like him who caused fireworks to be hidden under his pall, and, leaving directions with his executor when to light the match, died chuckling at the thought of blowing up the chief mourner.

I feel disposed to hope that the last illness of our merry friend may have been attended

by a physician who wore a tail; and also that the lawyer who made his will may have been so decorated. He was too crafty to make any testamentary mention of tails, lest men should smell a rat, and suspect his great scheme; and no doubt endured with firmness the discomfort of his tie, however it may have interfered with the "smoothing down" of his last pillow.

But, perhaps, it was in His Majesty's land service that this facetious encumbrance was most felt. Heroes were forced to be on foot, hours before they otherwise would have risen, in order to get their tails tied in time for parade; and when once tied, and soaped, and powdered, there was no further rest for those wicked men the head must be kept as in a vice; and a nod to an acquaintance or a turn of the face might have caused a shaking of the tail involving the certain exercise of the rattan, if not consigning the wearer to the stocks or the picquets.

As is usual in most cases, those of lowest rank fared worst: the tying of the private soldiers' tails commenced at two or three in the morning; then came the non-commissioned officers; after them the officers of the

company, beginning with the ensign, and contriving that the captain should be tied just in time for parade. Different occasions had different ties. There was the full-dress tie for review or guard-mounting, when the tail was exhibited in its fairest proportions and most ample length of riband, with a tuft at the tip, of which endless general orders had established the exact and infallible length and breadth. In marching order the tails were

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clubbed," or made up into a knot out of the way; and the troops "clubbed" their tails before going into action.

On one occasion, during the Duke of York's campaign in Holland, a certain distinguished regiment, remarkable not only for attention to such matters, but for their excellent discipline and conduct under all circumstances, were in position, expecting to be immediately engaged with a large force of the enemy moving up to the attack, when a sudden halt took place in the advancing column.

"What can they be halting for?" cried the colonel, impatiently.

"Perhaps, sir," suggested a young officer, quietly, "they are halting to 'club!""

hold your

"Hold your tongue, Jack;* hold tongue," said the goodnatured chief, not quite insensible to the ridicule.

The military parted with their tails with silent satisfaction, and the happy event is chronicled in a popular song. Not so the sailors when the order to cut off tails reached the fleet, it was appointed to be carried out at noon the next day, when the tails, having been cut, were collected into a vast bale in each ship (imagine a bunch of a thousand pigtails, each as long and as thick as your arm!) and hove overboard with three cheers.

The last pigtail, that I at least have seen, was in Ireland, and I place the fact on record for the benefit of future antiquaries.

In a certain town in the King's County there lived, and probably still continues to live, a small, dusty, faded old gentleman, conspicuously furnished with a pigtail. He was something the colour of antiquated parchment, and looked as if he had been laid ages ago in some neglected chest, and subsequently brought to light, and set going in the old-fashioned coarse

*The late Col. John Tucker of the 29th Regiment.

wrapping in which he had been stowed away. He was a brown man: he wore a brown wig; a brown hat much too large, and coming out wide at the top of the crown; a brown greatcoat, reaching nearly to his heels; brown worsted stockings, and brown shoes, unconscious of the modern inventions of Warren, Hunt, or Day. Where brown only is seen, brown will be presumed; he was suspected of brown breeches, but these no man had ever seen, and under his surtout all was pure conjecture: he had no wife to reveal the secret to-no man, no maid he lived alone with his tail. A question arose amongst the curious, Who tied his tail? - but there was no proof that the tail was ever untied, though the raising the question was enough to cast a slur of falsehood on it. Was it a maiden or a pollard tail? This none could answer. It was far from being a drooping or a downcast tail, but, on the contrary, it sat up with an air of obtrusive pertness. The old gentleman wore a coat which belonged to that epoch when collars were worn high; not so much deep, as coming high up the back of the head, and the tail resting upon this, gave it something the air of being