Clothing was hugely important in the identification of criminal suspects at large, missing persons, or deceased strangers in the nineteenth century. Descriptions of dress thus feature prominently in the Irish police gazette, the Hue and Cry, which published wanted notices from across the island. This article explores what descriptions in the Hue and Cry reveal about clothing and the wearer in Ireland and is based on a sample of 4,083 notices published from the 1850s to 1890s that document almost 14,000 individual items of clothing and footwear. It showcases intertwined meanings attached to clothing and argues that inhabitants could “read” bodies for what dress revealed about the wearer, with a particular focus on gender, age, social position, and occupation. Recognizing that people’s garments identified them in multiple ways, this article also shows that Irish inhabitants used dress as a form of deception. In doing so, it offers fresh insight into how nineteenth-century Irish inhabitants dressed and understood their clothing and the clothing of others.

在 19 世纪，服装在识别犯罪嫌疑人、失踪人员或已故陌生人方面非常重要。因此，爱尔兰警方公报Hue and Cry对着装的描述占据了显着位置，该公报发布了来自全岛的通缉令。本文探讨了Hue and Cry中的描述揭示了爱尔兰的服装和穿着者，并基于从 1850 年代到 1890 年代发布的 4,083 份通知的样本，其中记录了近 14,000 件衣服和鞋类。它展示了与服装相关的相互交织的含义，并认为居民可以“阅读”身体，了解穿着者的穿着，特别关注性别、年龄、社会地位和职业。认识到人们的服装以多种方式识别他们，本文还表明爱尔兰居民使用服装作为一种欺骗形式。通过这样做，它提供了对 19 世纪爱尔兰居民如何穿着和理解他们和其他人的服装的新见解。