- The Peplos
The peplos was the chief garment of the Achaean women of the early Archaic Period (circa 1200-600 B.C.). In shape it was a rectangular piece of material, often heavily embroidered and consequently of a solid texture. It was put on in the manner of the Doric chiton, but being made of more substantial stuff it was wrapped tightly round the figure without folds, girded at the waist and open up one side, the top part falling back over the chest and back. It was fastened on the shoulders, and often down the side,by large pins. - Church Parade
By long odds the best-looking exhibit is to be seen during church-parade. It extends from Hyde Park Corner to Stanhope Gate, and consists of the well-to-do. - A Drawing-room Tea
A Drawing-room Tea - Femme-de-la-cour and foundling
Femme-de-la-cour (Lady of the Court) and foundling - The Rat Man
“The old rat-man” and his pets find Brighton too dull in the winter, and come up to London for the season, to mix once more in its streets, where all kinds of horses are driven by as great a variety of men, from the pedler to the powdered-wigged coachman. Cable-cars and trolleys would be sadly out of place in London, and horseless carriages would be a calamity. There should be no need to go faster than a horse can trot, and the best way of all is to walk. - Sergeant Charley
...also the recruiting sergeants, among them Sergeant Charley, the best known of all. He has stood at the corner of the National Gallery for many years, and has probably talked more country boys into Her Majesty’s service, consoled more weeping mothers, and cheered more disappointed maidens than any other man in the British army. There is no better place in which Sergeant Charley can operate than Trafalgar Square—or from which the stranger can begin London - Waiting
At two o’clock the palace gates are open, and the waiting continues in the different rooms above stairs. - Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun
Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun Its rate of firing—770 shots a minute—is at least three times as rapid as that of any other machine gun.
It has only a single barrel, which, when the shot is fired, recoils a distance of three-quarters of an inch on the other parts of the gun.
This recoil sets moving the machinery which automatically keeps up a continuous fire at the extraordinary rate of 12 rounds a second.
Each recoil of the barrel has therefore to perform the necessary functions of extracting and ejecting the empty cartridge,
or bringing up the next full one and placing it in its proper position in the barrel, of cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.
As long as the firing continues, these functions are repeated round after round in succession.
The barrel is provided with a water jacket, to prevent excessive heating;
and is so mounted that it can be raised or lowered or set at any angle, or turned horizontally to the left or to the right.
The bore is adapted to the present size of cartridges; and the maximum range is eighteen hundred yards.
The gun can therefore be made to sweep a circle upwards of a mile in radius. - A Drawing Room
On March 11, 1896, the first Drawing-room of that year was held at Buckingham Palace. Through the courtesy of the Lord Chamberlain I was given the entree to the palace on that day. As a Drawing-room is strictly a feminine affair, it matters very little what a man may think about it, for the line points of social advantages and the costly costumes he seldom understands. Apart from the foreign ambassadors, members of the Cabinet and attendants, men are not wanted and are seldom seen. Women go in hundreds, and sit for hours in carriages, extending in long rows down the Mall, while a crowd of curious idlers stare in at the carriage windows, making audible personal remarks. At two o’clock the palace gates are open, and the waiting continues in the different rooms above stairs. - Distinguished Guests
The “season” begins about the time Parliament opens, and Parliament’s opening and closing depends more or less on fox-hunting and grouse-shooting. As the “season” approaches, town-houses are opened and “green” servants are broken in; secretaries busy themselves with lists and stationery, and the winter campaign begins immediately upon the family’s return to town. As a London house is seldom needed for more than the formal entertainments of a season, it is in most cases hired; consequently, it is seldom attractive. Acquaintances are entertained in the city, and friends are taken into the country to spend the week’s end on the family estate, surrounded by the household gods and the most attractive side of all England. - Sunday Morning near Stanhope Gate
Sunday is Hyde Park’s day “At Home,” and in the shape of a blue sky she sends her invitation to all London, and her popularity is easily shown by the number and variety of her friends. By long odds the best-looking exhibit is to be seen during church-parade. It extends from Hyde Park Corner to Stanhope Gate, and consists of the well-to-do, most of whom probably first came to the park with their nurses and a little later with their tutors, and they now come grown up and with white hair to pay their respects to the good doctor of their childhood. They form what is distinctly a Sunday gathering, and one as serious as a wedding. Seldom a loud voice is heard. There is a feeling of rest throughout the whole scene, and it is impossible to be there without entering into the spirit of it. - A Park Orator
Separated from these people by another social gulf, and toward Marble Arch, are the unemployed listening to the park actors and park orators. If you are tall enough to look over the heads of an English crowd you will see in some of these `groups` strolling players at work. In the centre of one group a short, red-faced park orator declares that a Prime Minister has robbed him. - Patiently Listening
Patiently Listening - In the 'Whispering Gallery'—A Small Loan
In the 'Whispering Gallery'—A Small Loan - On Bond Street
On Bond Street - Krupp's 15.6 Breech-loading Gun (breech open)
Amongst the class of modern cannon, one of the most powerful is Krupp's seventy-one-ton gun. This, like all others of his make, is a breech-loader. Its dimensions are—length, thirty-two feet nine inches; diameter at breech end, five feet six inches; length of bore, twenty-eight feet seven inches; diameter of bore, 15.75 inches; diameter of powder-chamber, 17.32 inches. The internal tube is of two parts, exactly joined; and over this are four cylinders, shrunk on, and a ring round the breech. Its rifling has a uniform twist of one in forty-five. It cannot possibly be fired until the breech is perfectly closed. Its maximum charge is four hundred and eighty-five pounds of powder, and a chilled iron shell of seventeen hundred and eight pounds. - An Early Departure
Man in Top hat - Your Hostess
Your Hostess - Two men talking
Two men talking - The Great Harry
Some of the earliest three-deckers, or, as we may almost call them, five-deckers, were built at this dockyard; and of these the most famous was the Great Harry, so named after the king, which was launched here in 1514. For the period, the ship was a large one, being of a thousand tons burden; though we should not think much of her size now, when we have ironclads of over eleven thousand tons. There are models of her in the Greenwich Naval Museum, which is not far from Woolwich; and a curious lofty wooden castle she is, rising far up above the water-line, and offering a fair target, if the cannon of those days had any accuracy. - Louis XVI on the leads of the temple
After an engraving of the period. - A Constitutional in the Park
A Constitutional in the Park - The Ionic Chiton
The costume of these people consisted practically of only two garments for men and women alike—nothing more than rectangular pieces of material—but the manner of wearing them required care, management and perfect taste. These garments were called by the Greeks: THE CHITON and THE HIMATION, but are commonly known to us as "The Tunic" and "The Mantle." The last six centuries B.C. and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries A.D. share a distinction in the history of costume, as being the only periods in which women have dominated the fashions. The women were compelled by law to change their attire, as it was found that the large pins by which the earlier "peplos"* was fastened proved dangerous weapons in the hands of infuriated women, whereas the Ionic chiton generally required no pins. - Hamlet
An actor in the park - La France
One of the largest sailing-ships afloat is the French five-master, La France, launched in 1890 on the Clyde, and owned by Messrs A. D. Bordes et Fils, who possess a large fleet of sailing-vessels. In 1891 she came from Iquique to Dunkirk in one hundred and five days with 6000 tons of nitrate; yet she was stopped on the Tyne when proceeding to sea with 5500 tons of coal, and compelled to take out 500 tons on the ground that she was overladen. - Lady
Lady - After Dinner
After Dinner - Ladies head
Ladies head - At the Savoy
At the Savoy - Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, March 9, 1451, just one hundred and fifty years after Dante was banished from the city in which both first saw the light. The Vespucci family had then resided in that city more than two hundred years, having come from Peretola, a little town adjacent, where the name was highly regarded, as attached to the most respected of the Italian nobility. Following the custom of that nobility, during the period of unrest in Italy, the Vespuccis established themselves in a stately mansion near one of the city gates, which is known as the Porta del Prato. Thus they were within touch of the gay society of Florence, and could enjoy its advantages, while at the same time in a position, in the event of an uprising, to flee to their estates and stronghold in the country. - At Dinner
At Dinner - Lady
Lady - George du Maurier
English-speaking people have been introduced to each other by a long line of clever draughtsmen. They have laughed together about the same people in the truest and sweetest-natured way in all the world. Above all others, one hand awakened the interest resulting in people knowing themselves and others better. The beautiful was safe in that gentle hand. Although the heart that guided it no longer beats, the human interest and kindly feeling that it awakened will live forever, and all the world has placed among the foremost men of his day the affectionately remembered name of George Du Maurier. - Louis XIV, for the first time, receiving his ministers
This moral depravation, naturally, extended downward to the whole court. M. Brentano, who is one of the few French historians who venture to lay disrespectful hands on the grand Roi-soleil, says: "Charles VII was the original source of the crapulous debauchery of the last Valois; he traced the way for the crimes of Louis XIV, and the turpitudes of Louis XV." This, although the higher clergy of the reigns both of Charles and of Louis Quatorze did not fail in their duty, and did denounce openly from the pulpit the sins of these all-powerful monarchs. - Lady in house-robe. Period, 1816
Lady in house-robe. Period, 1816 - The Paenula
A cloak of cloth copied from the Greek peasants. It was in common use among all classes, both men and women, as a travelling or rain cloak, and was an important garment with the peasantry. In colour it was dark, and in shape a semicircle with the straight edges fastened down the centre-front, converting it into a bell or funnel. Alternatively, the edges were sewn together down the front; but in either case it fitted close round the figure. A hole was left for the head, which was usually encircled with a hood. - Colobium
Shape. This garment varied in width across the shoulders. The greater the distance between the neck-hole and the edge of the top corner (see A B), the more the upper arm was hidden. This has the misleading effect of a sleeve to the elbow. The Romans had a great aversion to anything in the nature of a close arm covering, so the fashion of wearing long shaped separate sleeves, set by Alexander the Great, was not followed at Rome, as it was considered unmanly; besides, such sleeves were worn by foreigners and barbarians, so naturally this mode was distasteful to the patriotic intolerance of a Roman citizen. The Greek " kolobus," called by the Romans the "colobium." Another name for this garment was the "tunica". When more than one was worn, the under ones were called the "tunica interior" or "subucula." A long tunica was called "tunica talaris." - Outside the pit entrance
Nowhere is caste more noticeable than in a London audience. A little board fence divides the ground-floor of a theatre into orchestra stalls and a pit. It would cost you ten shillings less and your social position to sit on the wrong side of this fence. It does not follow that sitting on the right side of it assures your position. But it does give you an uninterrupted view of the stage. No hats are worn, and that alone makes it worth extra charge. There is, in most of the theatres, room for your knees, and in some, additional room for the man who goes out between the acts, and people who arrive after the curtain is up. A London audience is brilliant. Everyone is in evening dress, and the audience is often more entertaining than the play. This is especially true on a first night. At such times the pit is watched most anxiously by the management, as the success of the piece generally depends on their verdict. It has often occurred to me, when I have seen them on a stormy night forming a line on the pavement outside the pit entrance, taking it all seriously enough to stand there for hours before the doors were opened, that by letting them inside the management might improve their spirits, and they in their turn might be more gentle. - Edison with his Phonograph
Edison with his Phonograph In 1878 Mr Edison made a number of phonographs, which were exhibited in America and Europe, and attracted universal attention. The records were made in these on soft tinfoil sheets fastened around metal cylinders. For a while Mr Edison was compelled to suspend work on this invention, but soon returned to it and worked out the machine as it exists practically to-day. It occupies about the same space as a hand sewing-machine. A light tube of wax to slide on and off the cylinder is substituted for the tinfoil, which had been wrapped round it, and the indenting stylus is replaced by a minute engraving point. Under the varying pressure of the sound-waves, this point or knife cuts into the tube almost imperceptibly, the wax chiselled away wreathing off in very fine spirals before the edge of the little blade, as the cylinder travels under it. Each cylinder will receive about a thousand words. In the improved machine Mr Edison at first employed two diaphragms in 'spectacle' form, one to receive and the other to reproduce; but he has since combined these in a single efficient attachment. - Phil May
The fact that Phil May is a prophet in his own country should alone clear Englishmen of the suspicion that they are slow to see fun. On an Englishman’s love of fair play and good sport no suspicion has ever rested. It is the most attractive thing about him, and it is only natural that the greatest assortment of good-natured people are to be found at the Derby. I had already met them in May’s drawings, and I was prepared to find the good-nature contagious. Last year a party on a coach opposite the Royal box and a policeman, who looked after that particular part of the course, drank champagne out of the same bottle. - A Sidewalk Artist
In the early part of the day the parks are occupied by very young people; the visitors become older with the day. The nurses and their charges leave, and evening finds an old lady leaning on her husband’s arm, walking slowly along their favorite path, while their carriage follows at a little distance. And as night comes on they roll back into the great city among the never-ceasing tread of feet, past the side-walk artist sitting by his pictures on the pavement, looking anxiously at the passers-by—and the park’s day is done—a curtain of darkness falls on the great stage - Routes of the discoverers
Routes of the discoverers - North America from the globe of Johann Schöner
In a pamphlet accompanying "the earliest known globe of Johann Schöner," made in 1515, the new region is described as the "fourth part of the globe named after its discoverer, Americus Vespucius, who found it in 1497." Vespucci did not find it, and he never made the claim that he discovered more than is given in his letters; but this misstatement by another caused him to be accused of falsifying the dates of his voyages in order to rob Columbus of his desserts. - Ojeda's first voyage
There is no doubt whatever that Vespucci made a voyage in 1499-1500, along with Alonzo de Ojeda and the great pilot Juan[Pg 109] de la Cosa, but whether this may be styled his first or his second must be left to the intelligence of the reader, for the historians are at odds themselves, and it might seem presumptuous in the biographer to assume to decide. - Dragoon in full dress uniform 1880
Dragoon in full dress uniform 1880 - In the Row
The old gentleman in the Row undoubtedly first appeared there on Shetland ponies under the watchful eye of the groom. It is not a thing to tire of, and Sunday after Sunday these well-dressed people attend church-parade as seriously as they attend church. - The Duke of Wellington
One of the 'Wooden Walls of Old England.' The Duke of Wellington Screw Line-of-Battle Ship. One hundred and thirty-one Guns. - Between Times, Leicester Square
Between Times, Leicester Square - Costume for young girl. Period, 1821
Costume for young girl. Period, 1821 - At the Pavilion
A Music Hall audience is the most demonstrative and amusing. It will applaud the longest, hiss the loudest, and sometimes join in the chorus. From the moment the numbers are posted announcing the next turn, it is easy to tell what the performer’s reception will be. On both sides of the orchestra are bars, and when a London barmaid stops work to listen and laugh you may be sure that the turn is a good one. Last winter they paid Dan Leno this compliment. The air is filled with tobacco-smoke, and the calcium-light, on its way from the gallery to the stage, looks like a sunbeam in a dusty hayloft. - A first night
A London audience is brilliant. Everyone is in evening dress, and the audience is often more entertaining than the play. This is especially true on a first night. - Lady Cook
Lady Cook - [he Queen
3 men raising their glasses to toast the Queen - Lady
Lady - Profile of lady
Profile of lady - Small Wigs and Big Fees
The greatest variety of expressions are to be seen in the audiences that come together at the law courts. There is the never-changing face of the judge, and the ever-changing face of the witness rocking from side to side in his box, and there are the black-robed barristers with small wigs and big fees, and pale law students crowding in at the doors and filling the passage-ways; and in front of the long table that is covered with papers and high hats sit those most interested in what is going on—care-worn parents and women thickly veiled. - Josiah Wedgewood
Josiah Wedgewood More than once it has happened that the youngest of thirteen children has turned out a genius. It was so in the case of Sir Richard Arkwright, and it turned out to be so in the case of Josiah Wedgwood, the youngest of the thirteen children of Thomas Wedgwood, a Burslem potter, and of Mary Stringer, a kind-hearted but delicate, sensitive woman, the daughter of a nonconformist clergyman. The town of Burslem, in Staffordshire, where Wedgwood saw the light in 1730, was then anything but an attractive place. Drinking and cock-fighting were the common recreations; roads had scarcely any existence; the thatched hovels had dunghills before the doors, while the hollows from which the potter's clay was excavated were filled with stagnant water, and the atmosphere of the whole place was coarse and unwholesome, and a most unlikely nursery of genius. - A Dinka Dandy
The portrait represents what might be styled a Dinka dandy, distinguished for unusually long hair. By continual combing and stroking with hair-pins, the hair of the negro loses much of its close curliness. Such was the case here: the hair, six inches long, was trained up into points like tongues of flame, and these, standing stiffly up all round his head, gave the man a fiendish look, which was still further increased by its being dyed a foxy red. This tint is the result of continual washing with cow-urine; a similar effect can be produced by the application for a fortnight of a mixture of dung and ashes. - Lord Armstrong
Armstrong, during the Crimean War, made an explosive apparatus for blowing up ships sunk at Sebastopol. This led him to turn his attention to improvements in ordnance. He invented a kind of breech-loading cannon, and soon had an order for several field-pieces after the same pattern. He began with guns throwing 6 lb. and 18 lb. shot and shells, and afterwards 32 lb. shells; and the results at the time were deemed almost incredible. He had both reduced the weight of the gun by one-half, reduced the charge of powder, and his gun sent the shell about three times farther. His success led to his offering to government all his past inventions, and any that he might in the future discover. A post was created for him, that of Chief Engineer of Rifled Ordnance for seven years provisionally. - A Niam-niam girl
The social position of the Niam-niam women differ materially from what is found amongst other negroes in Africa. The Bongo and Mittoo women are on the same familiar terms with the foreigner as the men, and the Monbuttoo ladies are as forward , inquisitive and prying as can be imagined; but the women of the Niam-niam treat every stranger with marked reserve. Whenever I met any women coming along a narrow pathway in the woods or on the steppe, I noticed that they always made a wide circuit to avoid me, and returned into the path further on; and many a time I saw them waiting at a distance with averted face until I had passed by.