Another point: some of Sherlock Holmes's deductions depend on the fact that lower middle-class Victorians owned fewer clothes than most of us do today. Even after the textile industry was mechanised, before the invention of synthetic fibres clothing was comparatively expensive. So, the typist in "A Case if Identity" wears the same dress to work every day, and it has marks on the cuffs where her wrists rest on the table edge which give a clue to her occupation. The pawnbroker's assistant who is secretly digging a tunnel to the bank vault across the street in "The Red-headed League" has mud on the knees of his trousers; he hasn't changed them or put on overalls.
Kate Bunting Librarian & 17th century reenactor _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
