The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-11-14
PAPER COLLARS.

~ En- ttLLiho
The worm, when trodden upon, will turn;
at least SO we are informed upon apparently
respectable authority. 1t is pleasant to notice
that the paper collar is following the example,
and is evincing its Just contempt for its wearer
by poisoning his neck. Complaints are made
that some material is now used in bleaching
paper collars which is poisonous to the skin,
and which produces an eruption on the sur
face of the neck, thereby subjecting the VIC
tim to the degrading suspicion of being habi-
tually addicted to buckwheat cakes. For the
first time during its existence the paper COL
lar can now demand from honest people q
word of praise. 1t it perseveres in its laud-
able practice of neck poisoning, it will ulti-
mately be dismissed from service. and will no
longer be an offense to civilized people and a
STUN bling block to defrauded washer women.
No one denies that paper, in its proper
place, is an excellent thing. When con-
verted into currency or collars, it becomes,
however, a gigantic evil. The perverting
and demoralizing influence which the paper
collar exercises upon the conscience of the
wearer is obvious and undenlable. He puts
on hypocrisy when he buttons it about his
neck; and when he faunts it in the faces of
his fellow. men, he impudently demands that
they should believe it to be linen. No man
can habitually be guilty of attempted false
hood in point of collars without undermin-
ing his respect for truth; and it is impossi-
BILE for any one to insult mankind day after
day by demanding that full faith and credit
should be given to so palpable fraud as the
paper collar, without losing all respect for
humanity. To what low moral plane must
that young man have descended who can per-
nit the arm of affection to be folded about
his paper-encircled neck. He who thus per.
mits loves young dream to be mingled with
paper collars may rest assured that when the
intimacy of married life shall have revealed
his paper secret, he will fnd it impossible to
re-establish the faith which he has shattered
But there is even graver accusation to be
brought against the paper collars The man
who once begins to wear them continues to
shed them daily. They are furnished with
tough spinal column of muslin, and are
thus rendered nearly indestrucible. The re-
suit is that the wearers of paper collars are
gradually covering the surface of the earth
with a new geological stratum which every
year grows deeper and broader The dis
carded paper collar turks in the closets and
corners of boarding houses, where it mocks
the honest servant girl, whe hastily picks it
up under the delusion that she has found an
available article Ct portable property. 1t ed
dies around the back yard, dancing before the
breeze, and Turing the passing cat to pause
and notice eligible platforms for nocturnal
concerts, which she might otherwise never
have observed.
1t lies in wait on the sidewalk, and taking
surreptitious passage beneath the skirts of
p isslng beauty, energies to view upon crowd
ed corners to the confusion Of the innocent
victim. 1t thrown into drains, the discarded
paper collar joyfully braces itself to the work
Of nhokiru tho nina cod pfn bo
its muslin internal structure burns slowly,
giving off vast quantities of odorous smoke.
Ia the upper part of the city it nourishes the
predatory goat who having thus formed
taste for clothing, proceeds to crafty it by
lunching on the skirts of unwary children,
and by dining with select party of invited
guests eff accessible clothes-lines. Cast into
the river. the paper collar refuses to sink, but
floats with the tide until it is stranded on
some other wise romantic shore, which it
straightway makes vulgar by its presence. 1t
is repulsive fasehood while it is worn, but
it is vast and imperishable nuisance when it
is thrown away.
Had not the paper collar developed this
fortunate tendency to poison the wearer, the
future would have looked decidedly gloomy.
Unlimited expansion of the volume of paper
collars would have gone on. Being practi-
cally indestructble and non-exportable, they
would have gradually accumulated until the
country would have stood knee-keep in dis
carded collars. 1t is probable that the v est
ern Democrats would have thought of the
happy expedient Of making old paper collars
legal tenders TOR the sum Of, say, one dollar
each; but this plan. however admirable it
might seem to be to Messrs. Carey and Kelley.
would not by any means lessen the volume of
collars. We should in time have been buried
under the ceaseless and silent shower Of col
lars as deep as Pompeii was buried under the
ashes of Nersuvius. Let US hail with graft
tude the happy efforts OF the paper collar to
poison its wearers. 1t is an argument in
favor of the resumption of linen which no
sophistry can possibly overcome.-Ne York
Times.