The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1884-07-10
Concerning Shirt Fronts.

There exists no more interesting and
instructive spectacle for the student of
human nature than that of the shirt
fronts round dinner-table. A shirt
front is phenomenon of infinite hum
or-full of expression in every part of
it, possessing vast potentiaIities of
achievement from the bottom of the
throat to the pit of the stomach As is
the aspect of the shirt-front. such will
be the look impressed on the physi-
ognomy of the wearer. You no sooner
note the starched bulginess projecting
half-a-dozen inches out of the line of
the perpendicular ON the person of
Unitarian, or catch a glimpse of the
limp linen at the side of tine shirt-front
which the waist-coat ought to but can
not conceal, than you have acquired
clew to the character of that shirt
fronts possessor. The central stud
may be all right, but the general effect
is one of clumsiness. You trace in
tellectual confusion and slowness in
each fold before you, and you know in
stinctively that your opposite neighbOr
is born bungler. And now let us re-
gard the matter subjectively-let us,
that is, place ourselves in the position
of the shirt-front wearer. How often is
he not agitated by the consciousness
that the shirt-front which begins like q
beautiful woman may end ia hideou5
fish! Down to the central stud all is as
it should he. But as the meal pro-
crosses and he glances down his linen
he perceives to his horror tendency
on its part to disclose assure and to
reveal the under-garment, whatever its
hue, beneath. Henceforth there is an
end to all enjoyment Pellitur con-
Vivio letitia omnis. He can no longer
converse without constraint, his mind
wanders from the topic of talk, he be-
comes visibly distrait and palpably dis
gusted, and though he be seated beside
the fairest of the fair he grows as alb
sent-minded as the sage who employed
the finger of his bride as a tobacco
stopper. Shirt fronts are the most
tickle and capricious of all articles, and
of all portions of articles, of male at
tire. Their behavior in many instances
is incalculable. The shirt-frOnt which
conducts itself admirably one week is a
model of ill-conditioned eccentricity the
next. 1t has been annoyed by the
washerwoman, and, with that illogical
injustice characteristic of shirt-fronts,
vents its disgust upon the payer of the
washerwoman's bill. Or it begins the
evening well and terminates it in naan-
ner OF which it ought to be ashamed.
Perhaps the worst atfliction which can
overtake conscientious and we'll
meaning Unitarian is the discovery that
without a single premonitory hint his
shirt-frOnt has gone utterly and ire
trievably wrong. The under portion of
his solitaire has insolently shaken off its
moorings, detiantly refuses to be-
bound by its buttonhole, and. meta
phorically speaking, launches out into
space. Who is not familiar with the
efforts this hardly-used Unitarian makes
to conceal the horrible hiatus, or with
their futility? He scarcely dares to
look down. First he gives little nerv-
ous cough; then his hand wanders, as
if casually, to the middle of his chest.
But neither wandering hand nor nerv-
Gus cough can put, that shirt-front right
again. 1t is gone coon, and he will
as easily restore the solitaire to the
original socket as the soiled dove will
regain her virtue. He must accept the
blow of severe destiny, and his best
hope must be that by maintaining his
body at proper angle, and by peri
odically smoothing his ruffled plumage
with a skilltul hand, he may minimize
in some sort the appalling calamity
which has overtaken him.-LOadOn
World