From the regions of mud, dust, leather, and blacking, we will now reascend to the higher localities of the human person, and will fasten ourselves round the reader's neck. Do not be alarmed, we only want to _catch_ your attention; we will not extend the word to any thing else. Here, too, ladies are exemplified by their especial privilege from our impudent scrutiny; their necks when unadorned are adorned the most; if they are cold, let them put on their boas, or a _fichu_, or muffle up with their shawls; let them eschew all false collars, let them delight in good lace, and the matter is settled. But for a man with a bad tie! we could take him by the throat and throttle him! Here it is our duty freely to declare our candid opinion, that Beau Brummell and George IV. were not benefactors to the human race by introducing stiff cravattes and endless swathes of linen round the region of jugular veins and carotid arteries; if a man wishes to be comfortable any where, it is surely in his neck; let old gentlemen with scrofulous chins muffle themselves up to suffocation if they please, but why should we, who have nothing the matter with us, and wish to turn our heads _ad libitum_, be thus girt about and half stifled? Our climate, no doubt, requires some protection for the neck, and while beards are not worn, a cravat of some kind or other may be said to be necessary; but if comfort and use can be combined with elegance and good taste, and yet the old starched thing got rid of, so much the better. Let us remark, therefore, that we have done wrong in quitting the fashion of the seventeenth century as to cravats; we have adopted a stiff and a common material, and we have lost all opportunity of enjoyment, as well as of ornament. If you ever indulge in a white choker, good reader, only reflect for a minute on what you have round your neck--a yard and a half of stuff, the intrinsic value of which may be a couple of shillings, _plus_ a pennyworth of starch, _plus_ a neck as thick as an elephant's leg, and as stiff as a door-post, _minus_ all grace, _minus_ all comfort. But go and look at the Second Charles at Hampton Court--see how the merry monarch managed his neck on gala-days. You will observe that he had half a yard of the finest cambric, as soft as a zephyr, and as warm as swan's-down, tied once round; and ending before in long deep borders of the most precious Mechlin lace, worth a guinea or two a-yard, falling gracefully on his breast, or placed for convenience into a fold of his coat. How much more sensible, how much more ornamental, how much more noble, such a scarf or cravat as this, which no shopman's boy could emulate, than the cheap and ugly thing in which many a man still seems to delight! How admirably did these bands of rich lace contrast with the silken coats or the polished cuirasses of their wearers! how truly aristocratic was their appearance! how entirely without effort, without pretension, and yet how very distinctive of the type of their wearer! But you will say, if we fail in the matter of white cravats, surely we excel in that of black-silk ones and brocaded stocks! We _might_ excel, we allow; but we do not know how to wear these things. We ought either to limit ourselves to the smallest possible bow in front, or else we ought to let the square ends of the scarf be pendant and unconfined. Instead of this, we either put on a stock with a sham tie, (now all _sham_ things, of what kind soever, militate against good taste,) or else, to make the most of our scarf, we fill up the aperture of the waistcoat with an ambitious quantity of drapery, and we stick therein an enormous and obtrusively ostentatious pin. This is both vulgar and foolish. If we want a stock, it should be _perfectly plain--à la militaire_, for it is, in truth, an article of military attire, worn for the express purpose of giving stiffness and smartness to the figure. If we want a scarf, do not let us misconceive the nature of its form, the law of its curves, and huddle it up into an untidy, unmeaning mass, fit for nothing but to serve as a field of display for what is commonly cheap and bad jewellery. We may be wrong, but we strongly suspect that the tie-stock and the large silk scarf were brought into use by some dirty fellow, whose linens would not stand the test of public examination; and, indeed, whenever we see a man more than usually adorned in this way about the neck, we conjecture that all is not right beneath.