t a public function in
a European court all foreign representatives except ours wear clothes
which in some way distinguish them from the unofficial throng, and mark
them as standing for their countries. But our representative appears
in a plain black swallow-tail, which stands for neither country, nor
people. It has no nationality. It is found in all countries; it is as
international as a night-shirt. It has no particular meaning; but
our Government tries to give it one; it tries to make it stand for
Republican Simplicity, modesty and unpretentiousness. Tries, and without
doubt fails, for it is not conceivable that this loud ostentation of
simplicity deceives any one. The statue that advertises its modesty with
a fig-leaf really brings its modesty under suspicion. Worn officially,
our nonconforming swallow-tail is a declaration of ungracious
independence in the matter of manners, and is uncourteous. It says to
all around: 'In Rome we do not choose to do as Rome does; we refuse
to respect your tastes and your traditions; we make no sacrifices to
anyone's customs and prejudices; we yield no jot to the courtesies of
life; we prefer our manners, and intrude them here.'

That is not the true American spirit, and those clothes misrepresent us.
When a foreigner comes among us and trespasses against our customs and
our code of manners, we are offended, and justly so; but our Government
commands our ambassadors to wear abroad an official dress which is an
offence against foreign manners and customers; and the discredit of it
falls upon the nation.

We did not dress our public functionaries in undistinguished raiment
before Franklin's time; and the change would not have come if he had
been an obscurity. But he was such a colossal figure in the world that
whatever he did of an unusual nature attracted the world's attention,
and became a precedent. In the case of clothes, the next representative
after him, and the next, had to imitate it. After that, the thing was
custom; and custom is a petrifaction: nothing but dynamite can dislodge
it for a century. We imagine that our queer official costumery was
deliberately devised to symbolise our Republican Simplicity--a quality
which we have never possessed, and are too old to acquire now, if we
had any use for it or any leaning toward it. But it is not so; there was
nothing deliberate about it; it grew naturally and heedlessly out of the
precedent set by Franklin.

If it had been an in