Towards the end of the seventeenth century it was customary to carry in the muff small dogs known as “muff dogs,” and Hollar made a picture of one of these little animals.
A tale is told of the eccentric head of one of the colleges at Oxford, who had a great aversion to the undergraduates wearing long hair, that on one occasion he reduced the length of a young man’s hair by means of a bread-knife. It is stated that he carried concealed in his muff a pair of scissors, and with these he slyly cut off offending locks.
Both the Tatler and the Spectator include notices of the muff. In No. 153 of the Tatler, 1710, is a description of a poor but doubtless a proud person with a muff. “I saw,” it is stated, “he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby superfluities in his dress, for – notwithstanding that it was a very sultry day for the time of the year – he wore a loose great coat and a muff. Here we see poverty trying to imitate prosperity.” There are at least three allusions to the muff in the pages of the Spectator. We find in the issue for March 19th, 1711, a correspondent desires Addison to be “very satyrical upon the little muff” that was then fashionable amongst men.
A satirical print was published in 1756, at the Gold Acorn Tavern, facing Hungerford Market, London, called the “Beau Admiral.” It represents Admiral Byng carrying a large muff. He had been sent to relieve Minorca, besieged by the French, and after a futile action withdrew his ships, declaring that the ministry had not furnished him with a sufficient fleet to successfully fight the enemy. This action made the ministry furious, and Byng was brought before a court martial, and early in 1757 he was, according to sentence, shot at Portsmouth.
In America muffs were popular with both men and women. Old newspapers contain references to them. The following advertisement is drawn from the Boston News Letter of March 5th, 1715: —
“Any man that took up a Man’s Muff drop’t on the Lord’s Day between the Old Meeting House & the South, are desired to bring it to the Printer’s Office, and shall be rewarded.”
Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, in her “Costume of Colonial Times” (New York: 1894), gives other instances of men’s muffs being missing, “In 1725,” says Mrs. Earle, “Dr. Prince lost his ‘black bear-skin muff,’ and in 1740 a sable-skin man’s muff was advertised.” It is clear from Mrs. Earle’s investigations that the beaux of New England followed closely the lead of the dandies of Old England. “I can easily fancy,” she says, “the mincing face of Horace Walpole peering out of a carriage window or a sedan-chair, with his hands and his wrists thrust in a great muff; but when I look at the severe and ascetic countenance in the portrait of Thomas Prince, I find it hard to think of him, walking solemnly along Boston streets, carrying his big bear-skin muff.” Other Bostonians, we are told, maintained the fashion until a much later period. Judge Dana employed it even after Revolutionary times. In 1783, in the will of René Hett, of New York, several muffs are mentioned, and were considered of sufficient account to form bequests.
The puritans of New England had little regard for warmth in their places of worship, and it is not surprising that men wore muffs. People were obliged to attend the services of the church unless they were sick, yet little attempt was made to render the places comfortable.
The first stove introduced into a meeting-house in Massachusetts was at Boston in 1773. In 1793 two stoves were placed in the Friends’ meeting-house, Salem, and in 1809 one was erected in the North Church, Salem. Persons are still living in the United States who can remember the knocking of feet on a cold day towards the close of a long sermon. The preachers would ask for a little patience and promise to close their discourses.
Concerning Corporation Customs
The history of old English Municipal Corporations contains some quaint and interesting information respecting the laws, customs, and every-day life of our forefathers. The institution of corporate towns dates back to a remote period, and in this country we had our corporations before the Norman Conquest. The Norman kings frequently granted charters for the incorporation of towns, and an example is the grant of a charter to London by Henry I. in the year 1101.
For more than a century and a half no person was permitted to hold office in a municipal corporation unless he had previously taken sacrament according to the rites of the Established Church. The act regulating this matter was known as the Test Act, which remained in force from the days of Charles II. to those of George IV. It was repealed on the 9th May, 1828. In the latter reign, in 1835, was passed the Municipal Reform Act, which greatly changed the constitution of many corporate towns and boroughs. It is not, however, so much the laws as local customs to which we wish to direct attention.
The mace as a weapon may be traced back to a remote period, and was a staff about five feet in length with a metal head usually spiked. Maces were used by the heavy cavalry in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but went out of use in England in the reign of Elizabeth. It is not clear when the ornamental maces came to be regarded as an ensign of authority. Their first use may be traced back to the twelfth century. At that period and later spikeless maces were carried by the guards attending princes, as a convenient weapon to protect them against the sudden attacks of the assassin. Happily their need passed away, and as a symbol of rank only they have remained. In civic processions the mace is usually borne before the mayor, and when the sovereign visits a corporate town it is customary for the mayor to bear the mace before the monarch. We learn from history that when Princess Margaret was on her way to Scotland in 1503 to be united in marriage to James IV., as she passed through the city of York the Lord Mayor shouldered the mace and carried it before her. The mace was formerly borne before the mayoress of Southampton when she went out in state. A singular custom connected with the mace obtained at Leicester. It was customary for the newly-elected mayor to proceed to the castle, and in accordance with a charter granted by James I., take an oath before the steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, “to perform faithfully and well all and every ancient custom, and so forth according to the best of his knowledge.” On arrival at a certain place within the precincts of the stronghold the mayor had the great mace lowered from an upright position as a token of acknowledgment to the ancient feudal earls within their castle. In 1766 Mr. Fisher, a Jacobite, was elected mayor, and like others of his class was ever ready when opportunity offered to show his aversion to the reigning dynasty. He purposely omitted the ceremony of lowering the mace. When the servant of the mayor refused to “slope the mace,” the Constable of the castle or his deputy refused to admit the mayor. The ceremony was discontinued after this occurrence, and the mayor went in private to take the oath.
The following ordinances were in force at Kingston-upon-Hull about 1450, and point their own moral.
“No Mayor should debase his honourable office by selling (during his Mayoralty) ale or wine in his house.”
“Whenever the Mayor appeared in public he should have a sword carried before him, and his officers should constantly attend him; also he should cause everything to be done for the honour of the town, and should not hold his office for two years together.”
“No Aldermen should keep ale-houses or taverns, nor absent themselves from the town’s business,