, 1888-10-11
DRESS REFORM EoR MAN.
The Simple style at NIadequet-rhe Vest
an I-ncumbrance.

The Simple Style at Madequet-rhe Vest
an I-ncumbrance.
We can dress here in four pieces, to
wit: shirt, pants, shoes and hat. On
state occasions, socks. In town you are
commonly obliged to put on eleven pieces,
to wit: socks, shoes, drawers, pants,
shirt, undershirt, ~cravat, collar, vest,
coat and hat. A vast amount of time
and force is used up by myriads of civil
lied beings in putting on these eleven
pieces. In hot weather. A vast amount
of strength is used up by simply wearing
them. Starch is misery on a sultry day.
Your linen shirt is a straight jacket; your
lightly buttoned vest and four button
cutaway are two moro straight jackets
over that. You put N four thicknesses
of cloth to conform to the demands of
Broadway, when nature calls out but for
one, and a thin and very loose one at
that. When you have anything to do, or
you get to your Office, you shuck your
coat and sit in your shirt sleeves, or put
on q thin one,
You are unconsciously a slave to this
idiocy of custom. To heighten this idiocy,
you put on the most clothing and the
highest fits and the most starch in the
city, where it is hottest. When you go
to h country, where it is a little cooler
and there is more air to breathe and
purer air to breathe, and consequently
more strength to be got out of such air
to help you endure your load of tight fit
ting cloth, you put on less clothing and
looser clothing. This is inconsistent. You
should wear your cumbersome starch and
tight fitting vestments where you have
the most strength to wear them.
Your vest is a useless incumbrance. 1t
is only the rudiment of the old fashioned
afwaiGt cont - That Woo q coot Tf
reached to the hips 140 years ago. People
then wore in substance two coats-a back
coat and O front coat, now the waistcoat.
The waistcoat has been gradually grow
ing shorter. In a sack suit it is of no
earthly use save to increase your
load in hot weather and make
you hotter. 1t is simply another
short coat, which you wear because
your tailor a you must. It's
like wearing one hat inside the other.
You can't even wear it out. You know
you wear out out seven pairs of pants to
n waistcoat. You know that now your
closet is full of vests left over from worn
out suits that you don't know what to dc
with. You can't make them over into
pantaloons. You can't set them for eel
traps. Alone, they won't answer for
scarecrows. So millions of yards of cloth
are wasted yearly in the making of vests.
I'LL uoWn your VeSU. TuH III OH anC
leave it off.
1t is a great luxury to arise in the
morning and dress by three or four mo
lions in as many pieces, to stick your feet
into a pair of slippers and be shod with.
out the tediousness of lacing up or but.
toning up you city boots. And four
pieces can be made as becoming and grace
ful-aye, and more so-than eleven pieces.
and four garments can be changed
oftener and cleansed oftener. | be-
ieve that dress should be neat, be
coming and as graceful as possible for
every station or calling; and because q
man lives where there is no public or
public opinion to look after him, is nc
reason why he should live in rags or go
with uncombed hair. But the trouble is,
and you may see it proven every day in
the city in thousands and thousands of
cases, people haven't time nor means to
wear their eleven pieces properly, and for
that reason dingy linen is far more com
mon than that of snowy wilderness, and
a clean collar and cuffs are not proof that
they are tucked to a clean shirt, and the
necktie in two cases out of three is a base
and often unclean subterfuge and imita-
ton of something intended for an orna-
ment, slung on, stuck on, fired on any
way, only because custom says it must be
put on, and put on only to be endured.
Dress reform for woman only2 Man needs
it quite as much as she does.-Prentice
milford in New York Star.