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Police Uniforms


The question of police officers’ uniforms is agitating the whole force, and Chief Ellis and Judge Bob Ferral are in a quandary over it. The fearful point at issue is that some officers wear pearl gray, some French gray, others stone gray, others again drab, and so when they are altogether at their drill (leaving the city thieves to ply their vocation undisturbed,) our guardians present a motley appearance. The question, however, will probably be left to the officers themselves to settle, and, so far as is known, the new uniform will be as follows: A single breasted French pearl gray centennial tunic, plaited with tulle and gored in the seams with black velvet ruching and décolleté neck a la Marie Antoinette. Braids, passementeries and flat galoons will be hemstitched own the sides of the pants with a garniture-skeleton-velvet-ribbon-revolver-pocket and an open-basque-seam with narrow ruffles to contain the club and handcuffs. The buttons are to be of invisible green and the well-proportioned sleeves are finished at the wrist with narrow ruffles of Organdie. The hats will be turned up on one side and fringed with velvet or damask bouillons and the bodices are to be cut as low as propriety permits. The underclothing—but here modesty steps in with a warning frown, on account of the police force never using any.


San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser
August 5, 1876