The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-04-12

explosion of this mine in dress suits ill
advised I would a sad, yet patient. word
with him.
As one whose past is opulent Of dire ex-
perience, who has chased for years the
fretful COW and spread his blankets over
all the region from the ella to the Texas
Panhandle; who has fed upon mule beef
and picked his teeth with the thorn of the
somber mesquite; who has been west and
broken even; and who has returned to the
effete east to find the dress suit even as
a green tree and a fountain by comparison
with the arid adjuncts to Occidental ex-
tstence, l speak to him. Therefore let Bal
ley listen.
The dress suit is the most democratic Of
costumes. 1t protects US of the tribe of
poverty from being overpowered by the
vulgar rich. 1t is the uniform of self-re-
spect, of independence, and a bulwark
against all social invasions of the Goths
and Vandals of money. The dress suit is
within the reach of all; hangs, as it were
on the lowest limbs of the possible in gar
menture and the puniest and lowliest can
hurl the club that will bring it down.
And in the hands of the humble dress
suit becomes a sword and shield PIANO.
piled and armed Herewith they can meet
the purse-swollen and the mighty and cope
WIN tHtlll. All NAH 10 the QfeSS SUIT
II IS the wedding garment, the sling of
David, the rams horn before whose blasts
fell the walls of Jericho. If Lazarus had
been the proprietor of a dress suit you
couldn't have told him from Dives; and
that celebrated mendicant might have
met the rich man and held him level
Prithee, Bailey, ponder these things
AS nearly as l can gauge a motive-and
/ have gone calmly through this business
10 IL do
clines dress suit and sticks to the SOFT
hat and long surtoui of dead and bygone
day. This is anachronistic and fraught
with vile logic. These times be fin de
steele. Cotton is no longer king Ameri-
can gentiiity no longer drinks peach and
honey, misses its man at ten PAGES, and
diverts itself with poker, 1.-TWO call five.
in niggahs." Why. then, should Bailey
cling to the garb of that hour?
1t is solemn certainty that we must
do somewhat to wean and win Bailey
from these moody theories. As Dick
Weghtman well remarked in an editorial
i'm the Post of this city, society declines
to lose Bailey on a bubble. 1 shall as
suredly do all I may to the recovery of
Bailey; by the same token 1 would re-
paste fallen star in the armament il l
could.
Bailey does not refuse and put aside a
dress suit for any direct loathing of the
same; but rather for that he adheres ar
tectionately to what one might call the
uniform of his region. This is no good
reason. Suppose Bailey were born a
steeplechaser; would he continue to IN
habit the top boots and corduroys of am
pie base that are the badge of this dar-
ing tribe? Would Bailey decline a dinner
because he could not wear spurs? Would
he darken the banquet with his absence
because he might not find place on the
table for his whip and gloves?
Or, take the cowboy. Let Bailey look
upon the cowpuncher when he Is red and
moveth himself Alright; when he maketh
of his pistol pinwheel and explodeth the
same eXtempore fireworks; when he
donneth a mighty hat, jingleth his spurs
and ropeth afoot his pony. Let Bailey
consider this person of COWS when, with
out bucking straps, and not even the soft
buffer of a roll of blankets across the sad
die horn, he planteth his reckless frame in
the saddle and complieth a cigarette while
the broncho beneath him ricocheteth from
the spinning earth and seareheth- the very
heavens in the vanity of it's buckings Let
Bailey, l say, consider these matters and
then tell me whether, had he been born a
cowboy, he would refuse to eat a the
white house unless he could stake out his
pony in the east room and use a half-inch
manila to rope up to his use the terrapin
and such other viands his fancy might
crave. Nay, nay. l ween not.
Rambling through the realm of dress
would Bailey had he come from the bikes
| and dunes and windmills of Holland,
drink naught but gin and wear all his
useful life the ancestral wooden shoes
Think of a statesman galumping about
the House of Representatives in wooden
| Shoes making more noise than a horse.
| Think you he could catch the speaker S
eye or get a hearing? Never in a thou
sand years. as Tammany Tim would say.
| Not on your life!
No, no: a man must dress for his game
| If he would win a wreath in the Roman
| arena he must take sword and buckleI
or a net and trident; if he would triumph
| as boxer he must strip to the belt; if he
| would joust in the steel clad lists of Ash
| by he must seek a Milan armorer; if he
would be witty with Rochester or throw
| main with Buckingham at the Pigeor
| House, or meet with King Charlie after
ward, he must consent to peachblow no
sen and silken trunks and doublet.
Think, if Baileys theory of the immuta'
| bity of dress obtained unmodified, with.
| out a change, what might have been his
| fate had he been born a South Sea Island
err with whom full dress means a neck.
lace of sharks teeth and a club? Or sup.
pose Bailey had first seen light on the
Grampian Hills, or some other series oil
Scotch eminence, how would he look to-
! day driving Dingley into corner on tar.
if and taking his bread away, and him
| Bailey In a plaid skirt and tartans, and
| probably attended by the tribal bagpipel
with his skreelng strains as if a hundred
| murdered cats told all at once of the fou
| methods of their taking off? Could Bal.
! ley talk tariff with Dngley while clad ir
the dress of a Highland chief? Thus un,
| holstered, Dingley wouldn't let Bailey
| come near enough to him to hand him a
| ripe peach, let alone debate with him
But why prolong an argument over what
| seemed plain to all save Bailey and now
must be clear to him? There are dresses
and dresses. They are for occasions. and
! they shift and change, and take renewed
| and sometimes strange shapes as the oh,
| ject of the meeting varies. one would
not seek the north pole in pajamas. noi
wear sealskn in Timbuctoo. BY the same
argument we yield at evensong to the soft
keeping of the dress suit. and with our
work aside become children of the claw.
hammer when the sun goes down.
What n Woman Can DO.
Il do as much travelling as the next
man." said the drummer whose territory
| covers the principal states In the union. ac.