The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1893-10-21
WHEN HANDS ARE IN THE WAY.
Wear Dress Suit for the First Time ana
Find Them Superfuous.

T.
Find Them Superhuous.
what can even a man who isn't
self-respecting do, with his hands
while immured in dress suit? saws
the New York Tribune. ..Let EN-
hang, OF course" will be the reply of
the quick and penetrating reader
and no doubt that is the best thing he
can do, but it occurs to us that it
should not be so. The dress suit is
defective; it is behind the age; it does
not meet the requirements of civil
lied man. The man who can wear a
| dress suit and let his hands hang and
swing about without experiencing a
sense of discomfort shows an instance
OF atavism. Man originally. of course,
let his hands bangle and whip
about him in every passing wind.
he also ate his food raw and
lived in cave, with dark rooms and
perhaps family in the next cave
with children. In this primitive
condition of Ii fe man had but little
to do, so he did not find it difficult
to look after his hands, even. if he
had no place to put them. But as
ne advanced he had other things to
take up his attention and thoughts,
and relief from the constant strain
OF attending to his hands became i'm
perative: A place where his hands.
could repose in comfort while his,
active mind continued to wrestle,
with important problems was seen to-
be necessity. The result was the
invention of the trousers pocket, the
natural home of the human mascu-
line hands. Woman, not having any
weighty thoughts like men, and con-
sequently being free to look after
her hands, has never developed any
pockets for them.
One OF the most difficult problems
which scientists have to encounter is
why man, after having through long
years OF evolution developed a. salts
factory pocket for his hands, should
deliberately give it up in the dress
suit. For the trousers of the dress
suit, not always, of course, but in a
majority of cases we think, taking
the country as a whole, are, entirely
wanting in pockets, or the pockets
are rudimentary, or they are placed
In such a position that it is harder
work to keep the hands in them than
1t is to attend to them outside. OF
course the man who puts on dress
suit every evening at o'clock be-
comes in time accustomed to this un-
natural condition in a measure,
and even appears quite at his ease
while his hands are loosely swaying
at his sides. But even in his case it
is largely the appearance of ease.
and his thoughts frequently revert
to his former pocketed state. BUT in
| the case of a man who wears his
| dress suit only half dozen or a
! dozen times year the positive
misery involved in suddenly having
a pair of orphan hands Thrust upon him
is always considerable, and frequently
it is intense. It is lack of trousers
pockets for his hands which makes a
man forget all the good things he
was going to say in his after-dinner
speech. He thinks of them easily
enough the next day when he can
get rid of his hands. 1t is the men
tai strain of getting along with
out trousers pockets which fire.
! quently brings man home from
an entertainment in democrat
lied condition, which his wife fool
ishly ascribes to drink, when per-
haps he hasn't had but five or six
kinds of wine, with a little brandy
and a miscellaneous liquor or two.
Statistics show that only one young
man in thousand can successfully
propose marriage in dress suit, the
difficulty being solely the amount OF
attention which his hands demand.
1t is hard, of course, for woman to
understand this thing, never herself
having felt the need Of q suitable re-
treat for her hands; but women are
going to discover when they come to
vote and to annex distant
islands, not to mention learning to
play poker, that they will have, to
e.