Mexico weekly ledger., 1890-08-07
MEMS SUNDAY DRESS.
Is 1t Good Form to Wear q Dress Coat
Every Night?

Points of etiquet interest the public
from time to time. and in this country.
where rules are not laid down with
great force or with any hope that they
will be consistently carried out.
questions of what it is right and what
it is not right to do are often topics OF
animated discussion.
There is not so much to quarrel over
in regard to evening dress. and still a
quiet litigation is always going on as
to whether men are to wear it Sun.
day evening or not. Some men un.
doubtedly think it a hardship to get
into a swallow-tail coat every evening
of the week. When the age for
| swallow tails arrives the young man
who dons il has most decided scruples
about appearing in anything else, but
those men are rare in America who
keep up the custom year in and year
ont. One sees young married people
begin their housekeeping with string
ent rules in this regard, but it does not
take long for them to alter their views.
and in respect to Sunday evening most
of all.
The subject came up at the Sunday
evening supper-tabie of u society lady
| not long ago. There were four young
men present. one of whom was in eve
ming dress. The others were not, and
| after the party had warmed up to the
subject under the gentle influence OF
Chahlis with creamed lobster prepared
at table by the mistress of the house in
a silver chatting dish, reasons were
given for and against. One man said
that he had enough of formal things
during the week and he never accepted
invitations for Sunday evening where
he knew he would have to dress. An
other said that he was brought up in
New England, where church-going was
the order of the day and evening and
he never felt quite SO comfortable in
his dress suit on Sunday night. The
third agreed with the first. and thought
that Sunday was a day when formality
could be put aside. 1t was the man
who was in evening dress who really
had the best of the argument. He said
he would no more think of not dress.
ing on Sunday than on any other day.
His family dined at night on that day,
as they always did on every other, and
he could not see any reason for omit
ting wearing evening dress.
There's the solution of the matter.
1t is the dining in the middle of the
day, as so many New Workers do,
which produces the informality in
most houses. The lack of uniformity
in this regard prevents a rule from BE-
ing established.
Formerly there was nj very strong
reason for not wearing evening dress.
The churches held evening service, and
it being the proper thing to go, the
custom did not admit of the otherwise
daily formality of dressing. There is
undoubtedly another reason to be
found why men do not find it necessary
to change their dress on Sunday eve
ming, in the fact that they are care
fully dressed on Sunday for dinner,
even supposing that meal to take place
in the middle of the day. Our leisure
class is SO small that it is not worth
while to consider it. and it may be
taken for granted that on week days
men spend their time in the different
business pursuits, and that they are
glad when evening comes to get out of
the clothes they have been wearing all
day into something else. Why should
it not be the dress suit? But Sunday,
being already dressed in the Sunday
go-to-lneeting" garments, they find it
unnecessary to make a change.