Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-06-19
GIVE HIM A NEEDLE.
 .@ Why Should Not the Man Learn to Wleld the Shining Instrument7


 Why Should Not the Man Learn to WieId
 the Shining Instrument7
 MAN's inability to sew has been chased among his great weaknesses and if the matter be attentively considered this proposition will be found hardly so absurd as it at first sight appears.
 Sydney Smith, who often wished that he could sew, gave as his reason for coming to the conclusion that all men should sew, that | women are much more cheerful generally than men. This, he said, is because they can work and vary more their employments. Scott also thought that men should sew. Ladies are, I think" wrote the Wizard of the North in letter to Lady Douglas Stewart, "very fortunate in having resource in work at time when the mind rejects intelligent | amusement. Men have no resource but striding up and down tho room, like a bird that beats itself to pieces against the bars of | its cage; whereas needlework is sort of sedative, too mechanical to worry the mind by distracting it from the points on which it's musings turn, yet gradually assisting 1t in regaining steadiness and composure." That this was no nasty and fieeting idea of Scotts is shown by an entry in his diary, thirteen years after this expression of opin- l ion, at a time when he was writing off'' his great debt. He thus returns to the subject: Women, it is said, go mad much schooner than men. l fancy, if this be true, it is in some degree owing to the litile manual works in which they are constantly employed. which regulate in some degree the current of ideas as the pendulum regulates the motion of U timepicce.''
 As d sedative alone, then, much may be said in favor of needlework, or indeed of all work of a like character. For the literary .hopf fhon arl- ,cI,< man who is obliged to use his brain, little necdlework would refresh the machine far better than many of those occupations or amusements which are usually resorted to by W;'y or relief. Another argument in favor of the adoption of sewing by man is it's utility a fact which should recommend it to those who do not require it as sedative
 In spite of what the conventional humorists say to the contrary, when at home, mans buttons and buttonholes are generally attend ed to with loving care. But most men are obliged to travel occasionally. What annoy ances might be avoided during those absences l If Il slight knowledge of sewing were general among mon!
 Even if it were proved absolutely desirable, however, it is not very probable that sewing Will be generally taken up by men. Why it should not be, it is difficult to understand, But the stock jokes, the valentines of "oId bachelors" struggling with button or u rent | Ill the trousers, and, above all the alleged difficulty which man experiences in threading | needle, seems to have made the masculine gender look upon sewing with disdain. On the difficulty which men experience in thread ing needles, much has been written,
 But 1t may be questioned whether in all the literature on the subject there is anything halt so genuinely funny as an amusing con tradiction which Mark Twain makes on the important ceremony. In "The Prince and the Pauper," Miles Tendon soliloquizes, while en- deaVor1ng to use a needle and thread, "Now l shall have the demons own time to thread It. And, observes Mark Twain, 'sso he had. He did as men have always done, and probably always will do to the end of time held the needle still and tried to thrust the thread through the eye, which is the opposite Of a woman's way."s ---... -
 But note what Mark says in a later work. 1.-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.'' At page ninety-dve Mrs. Judith Loftus thus apos- tlophlzes that precocious youth: "Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch the nee- dle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it-thats the way a woman most always does; but man always does t'other way.'' ,..s.ss .....
 Aae-.Ao-r- -th1-14,,ast a-i.os--,va,foi. doc. the woman hold still, the needle or the thread !? It must be candidly confessed that we are not sufficiently acquainted with the operation to decide, but whichever may be the correct way there is no reason why men could not learn as well as women. As matter of fact. in some parts of the country sewing is taught in schools to boys and girls alike, and if this im- portant duty were generally made branch of education the advantage to men-even if they only wanted to avail themselves of the knowledge at intervals would be by no means inconsiderable.
 On all hands we find that women are taking up work which, until 8 few years ago, was l considered as mans especial province, so that really little can be urged in favor of consider ing sewing as an almost purely feminine en- ployment. If the line of demarcaMon has been overstepped by one sex, why should it not be by the other? Should the decrease in the marriage rate continue, there will be a still greater incentive for young men to learn sew 1 ing, since it is obvious that man is not equipped to go through the world alone un- less he is able to SOW on his own buttons.- l London Tidbits.