p of "failures." Indeed to put out of view the more
obvious, weighty, and important cares attached to the due selection
and arrangement of coats, waistcoats, and indispensables, the science
of "Cravatiana" alone is one which makes heavy claims on the time,
talents, and energies of the thorough-going gentleman of fashion. He
should be thoroughly versed in all its varieties--The Royal George:
The Plain Bow: The Military: The Ball Room: The Corsican: The
Hibernian Tie: The Eastern Tie: The Hunting Tie: The Yankee Tie: (the
"alone original" one)--The Osbaldiston Tie: The Mail Coach Tie: The
Indian Tie, &c. &c. &c.

Though of these and their numberless offshoots, the Yankee Tie lays
most claim to originality, the Ball Room one is considered the most
exquisite, and requires the greatest practice. It is thus described by
a "talented" professor:--

"The cloth, of virgin white, well starched and folded to the proper
depth, should be made to sit easy and graceful on the neck, neither
too tight nor loose; but with a gentle pressure, curving inwards from
the further extension of the chin, down the throat to the centre dent
in the middle of the neck. This should be the point for a slight dent,
extending from under each ear, between which, more immediately under
the chin, there should be another slight horizontal dent just above
the former one. It has no tie; the ends, crossing each other in broad
folds in front, are secured to the braces, or behind the back, by
means of a piece of white tape. A brilliant broach or pin is generally
made use of to secure more effectually the crossing, as well as to
give an additional effect to the neckcloth."

What a world of wit and invention--what a fund of fancy and
taste--what a mine of zeal and ability would be lost to the world, "if
those troublesome disguises which we wear" were reduced to their old
simplicity of form and material! Industry and talent would be at
discount, for want of materials whereon to display themselves; and
money would be such a drug, that politicians would declaim on the
miseries of being _without_ a national debt. Commerce, in many of its
most important branches, would be exploded; the "manufacturing
districts" would be annihilated; the "agricultural interest" would,
consequently and necessarily, be at a "very low ebb;" and the "New
World," the magnificent and imperial empress (that is to be) of the
whole earth, might sink again to the embraces of those minute and
wo