The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-12-18

ing coats, slippers, pipes and smoking
materials and implements of all sorts.
that women are cheated out of the
easiest selection that could be made.
But men long ago became aware that
women choose some of these things as
an offering and foXily put off their re-
cepuon by laying in an ostentatious
stock of all such commodities.
A man likes to select his own pipes
ana his own clothes as rule. AS to
cigars-they dread those purchased by
womankind as much as they do en-
broidered slippers
No matter how tasteful woman may
be in the selection of her own frocks
ana hats. she is sure to think some
thing patterned like a kitchen oiIcloth
as the proper thing for Jacks smoking
coat or his necktie. One girl who in
sisted on sending her brother. who was
at college, neck scarfs whffich she Sc
lected with sisterly care, was sur
prlsed to find them draped over his
pictures as upholstery when she visited
ms rooms. And another man was
heard to remark last year that he
oldnt mind his wife presenting him
with cigars If she didn't always insist
on knowing what he did with them
rms year women can cease their
troubling, for fashion has evolved a
gift for man which is useful. decor
mai IN its expression of regard as the
giver desires or it may breathe all
sorts of pretty sentiments worked in
by the white fingers of it's donor. Be
sides that it has the merit of being.
easily understood by its recipient No
man exists who at some time in his
career has not been presented with a
tangled web of hand painted satin lace
and embroidery, ornamented with much
RIBBON, which he has pondered over in
secret, trying to discover what it's use
might be, and finally tackled it up on
the wall and held guessing matches
With his visitors as to what "it" was
But the girl who is in the know is
going to give her masculine relatives
or her sweetheart cushions this wear.
A cushion is something that every one
appreciates. Busy men do not have
much time for resting, but there is al
ways some hour of the day or the week
when a man reclines upon a couch to
smoke, to sleep, to read or to talk One
cushion is absolutely necessary. Butthe
sybarite knows that there are cushions
to match different moods There are
relentless hair stuffed cushions. which
spur the idle one from his divan to
deeds of great endeavor, and there are
cushions downy and springy and adapt
ed to restful moments and to mornings
following bachelor suppers and things
Therefore it is impossible for an up
to-date house to have too many cush-
IONS and while no woman is generous
enough to allow her husband more than
three hooks in a clothes closet, he is
usually given some part of the home
a library, a smoking room, a den" or
a sleeping room combining all three
where he is allowed to revel in undust-
ed disorder and the freedom of mascu-
line negligee.
Bachelor apartments have become. so
gogeous in their furnishings that a
Vari a. of cushions is only one of the
many home comforts with which dec
orators supply them. There are cush-
ions for the floor, for the chairs, for the
diysns, says the New York World
There are tiny cushions that one can
put over his ears when rafting cab
wheels disturb the night, and there are
others painted by noted artists and dis
posed with careless effect in positions
where they cannot be used.
The masculine craze for cushions
started in the various dormitories of
the big colleges, where the students de-
corate their rooms in all sorts of odd
effects, from stolen signs and restau-
rant ware to posters of stage divini-
lies. When the cushion epidemic broke
out il was in a mild form, but 1t spread
rapidly and become virulent in a short
&hile. Then each man went about in