People who regard appearances, and are accustomed to see and be seen, can scarce expect that any improvement will materially diminish their yearly outlay for dress, for themselves or families.Whatever proportion of their revenues they may have found it necessary so to expend, in order to maintain the appearance their rank required, they may fairly reckon they will have to expend in future.The gentleman, the tradesman, the lady, the servant girl, must alike obey the laws which the strength of this principle imposes on the society.Whatever advance improvement may make, they must still lay their account with being looked down on by their respective associates, or having to wear garments just as expensive as ever, without being better looking, or more comfortable, in a degree answering by any means to the facilities of fabrication effected by the successful efforts of invention.
In so far as their dress is a mark of their riches, a sort of inscription they bear about with them, as Mr.Storch expresses it, serving to impress others with the belief of their possessing a certain amount of wealth, or holding such a rank in society, it is exactly analogous to coin.Double the facility of production, the quantity carried about, to answer the same purpose, must be doubled, or recourse must be had to some other material.
Purple, or scarlet, served among the Romans for a mark of this sort; only the rich could afford to wear it.Although still admired as a color, it no longer serves the purpose, and is comparatively little used.Lace, among the moderns, was once a mark of the same kind.Invention has so far facilitated the production of some sorts of it, that the wearing them no longer confers distinction.Increase that facility, till a yard of the finest sorts may be had for a few ball pence, and it is questionable if the beauty of the fabric would preserve it as an article of dress wearable by any one.(119)To articles of furniture, of diet, to the equipage of the rich, and to the whole apparent expenditure of every class, similar observations will apply.A greater or less part of the effects of improvement, is absorbed by vanity in them all, and consequently lost.
In as far again as any article is not a luxury, in as far as it is beyond the reach of vanity, and consumed to supply some real want, not to display superiority, in so far improvement is really felt.Were invention to discover some substance having all the properties, and the exact appearance of good leather, and capable of being formed for one sixth of the outlay, it would be an effort of that power very sensibly felt.Boots would probably indeed cease to be worn by the higher classes, unless when on horseback, but good shoes cannot be dispensed with by any class.They are worn for comfort, not for show, and the diminution in the outlay necessary to procure them, would constitute a real improvement.Improvements in mining and modes of transporting coal, diminishing the labor necessary to bring them to market, are also sensibly felt, they facilitate the supply of real wants, and move instruments towards the more quickly returning orders.Improvements in the manufacture of iron, also escape vanity and are real.Could ingenuity discover a method of quarrying stones and reducing them to shape, or of making bricks at one half of the present outlay, it would be a real improvement:
only a small part of it would be lost on vanity; for, unless in the highest classes, a dwelling-house is much more for comfort than for show.Could the substance of potatoes be converted into an article exactly similar to wheaten flour, and requiring only half the outlay, that would also be a very great improvement.Improvements too in the fabrication of articles of glass, and earthen ware, are in a great degree real.Could the manufacture of plate glass be so facilitated, that it might be had for only double the price of common window glass, the substitution of the one for the other could not be called a luxury, but a real improvement, an increased provision for the supply of future wants.In Great Britain ingenuity has succeeded, in recent years, in very greatly facilitating the manufacture of cotton fabrics.The increased facility of production has in part effected a real improvement, but certainly has in a great measure also been absorbed by vanity.Much less labor is now necessary to produce articles of dress of this material which are not seen, or are but little seen; but for dresses worn in public, the expenditure is certainly not diminished, or the beauty or comfort of the article increased, in proportion to the increased facility of production.The finer sorts of these stuffs are perhaps produced with ten times the facility they were twenty years ago, yet probably the whole annual expenditure which a young female makes for such part of her apparel as is formed of these stuffs, is little less than what her mother, twenty years ago, was accustomed to make, and certainly she is not ten times more becomingly or more comfortably clad.The great cheapness indeed of even the finest and most delicate of these fabrics, is such that vanity seems to be discarding them.The utmost efforts of ingenuity can scarcely embody a sufficiency of labor in them, or vary them so as to make them a fit full dress for even a tradesman's wife.
