ribbon proved itself as serviceable as becoming over the crown of the straw hat, where it was placed to secure it firmly to its wearer.
My investigations by the way of Scotch and Irish and Welsh peasants have been few, but the details of one modern representative Irish peasant's dress I can quote as including "a short skirt of linsey turned up over a petticoat of red or some other bright colour, with the bodice belted round the waist and laced down the front, worn beneath a long frieze cloak with cap and hood; the head is covered with a kerchief." Of imperishable memory is the red Connemara colleen cloak; and the native Welsh dress is not less dear to the lovers of the picturesque, with its high pointed hat worn above a frilled lawn cap, the worsted shawl, the short petticoat, and white apron and trim shoes. The Highland dress was in its original form a chequered covering known as a breconfeile, a plain piece of tartan two yards wide and six yards in length placed round the waist in folds, and held in position by a leather belt. The plaid was fastened on the left shoulder by a large brooch, the right end hanging down longer than the left, being tucked into the belt, while the right arm was left uncovered save in the severest weather, when the plaid was thrown over the whole body. This was the wear, until the end of the eighteenth century, of Lowlanders and Highlanders alike.
The Scotch, and the Irish too, had a rooted antipathy to footgear, preferring to carry their shoes and stockings rather than permit them to do their proper duties, and when the etiquette of church-going demanded the sacrifice of this inclination, they yielded only during the service, afterwards
