_Stook of Duds_ Sect; any individual
communicant is named _Stook of Duds_ (that is, Shock of Rags), in
allusion, doubtless, to their professional Costume. While in Ireland,
which, as mentioned, is their grand parent hive, they go by a perplexing
multiplicity of designations, such as _Bogtrotters, Redshanks,
Ribbonmen, Cottiers, Peep-of-Day Boys, Babes of the Wood, Rockites,
Poor-Slaves_: which last, however, seems to be the primary and generic
name; whereto, probably enough, the others are only subsidiary species,
or slight varieties; or, at most, propagated offsets from the parent
stem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of difference, it were
here loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to understand, what seems
indubitable, that the original Sect is that of the _Poor-Slaves_;
whose doctrines, practices, and fundamental characteristics pervade and
animate the whole Body, howsoever denominated or outwardly diversified.

"The precise speculative tenets of this Brotherhood: how the Universe,
and Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves to the mind of an Irish
Poor-Slave; with what feelings and opinions he looks forward on the
Future, round on the Present, back on the Past, it were extremely
difficult to specify. Something Monastic there appears to be in their
Constitution: we find them bound by the two Monastic Vows, of Poverty
and Obedience; which vows, especially the former, it is said, they
observe with great strictness; nay, as I have understood it, they are
pledged, and be it by any solemn Nazarene ordination or not, irrevocably
consecrated thereto, even _before_ birth. That the third Monastic
Vow, of Chastity, is rigidly enforced among them, I find no ground to
conjecture.

"Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandiacal Sect in their grand
principle of wearing a peculiar Costume. Of which Irish Poor-Slave
Costume no description will indeed be found in the present Volume; for
this reason, that by the imperfect organ of Language it did not seem
describable. Their raiment consists of innumerable skirts, lappets
and irregular wings, of all cloths and of all colors; through the
labyrinthic intricacies of which their bodies are introduced by some
unknown process. It is fastened together by a multiplex combination of
buttons, thrums and skewers; to which frequently is added a girdle of
leather, of hempen or even of straw rope, round the loins. To straw
rope, indeed, they seem partial, and often wear it by way of sa