The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1901-01-25
TlNERANT TAILORS.
An Old Timer Explains Why TRnu-
SEES BaRred mt the Knees.

1t is all very well to look through the
advertisements and determine where to
go In quest of an overcoat or pair OF
shoes, and, young as some men may be
today, they can tell younger men when
there was not shoe or a clothing store
advertisement or a tailor's announcement
in any newspaper. I'VE had to bide our
time till the cObbler and the tailor came
around" said w. w. Morgan few days
since, as he set out to kill time between
Kansas City and Sedalia. Talk about
your ready made clothes" said the vet
eran, 81 am not so far gone myself but l
remember we'll when the visit of the tai
lor to our town was an unusual affair.
Why, bless your life, we would save up
for that time and talk about it for weeks
We figured on it for months often. Some
of US bought the cloth at the mills, but
many of us shrarcd our own sheep and
had it woven and carded and shorn and
all the rest of It.
"Shorn? Why, my boy, the cloth made
In those days sometimes stuck up like
the bristles on toothbrush until it was
shorn. First we sheared the sheep, and
then we sheared the cloth.
but about the tailor. He went from
town to town and from house to house.
When he would strike our little place, we
people who had need Of his services
would arrange to take him in. He came
into the house and camped there until
he had QUILTED everybody about the
place for whom there was a piece Of
cloth waiting. When he finished there,
he would 90 on to the next family which
had bespoken him. About the lit, never
mind. Poor fellows, they always did as
10 I,,A
tons on tight and fixed the pants so they
would not rip and made the back roomy
so the coat could be got into and the
pants sat down in, but the less said
about the fit the better because when we
send q garment out now and remember
what we had to wear ourselves when we
were boys we do not like to say much
about the fit.
"And it was the same way with the
shoemaker. 1t will amaze men of % to
hear that men of 20 and even less had to
wait with their sole leather and their
findings to get pair of shoes made.
The cobbler Travelled about the same
way the tailor did, from town to town
and from house to house. OF course in
the cities he had his own store, but he
never carried ready madeS. | am i'll the
clothing business now and have been for
a long time, but it was long after / was
grown that ready made pants went on
sale. They were the first of the ready
mades. People did not like them. They
did not fit anybody anywhere. by and
by they tacklcd COATS and they made n
worse staggCr at that at first than they
did at the pants, but now loak at it.
Perfection"
Then Mr.. Morgan told n curious thing.
'"The man who pays $40 for a ready
made suit of clothes might drop down
dead if he knew the man who had cur
the pattern for him had been paid So
600 Il year for doing it, but like rs not it
is true. They pay enormous prices for
their cutters, these manufacturers. 1t
stands to reason that the clothing man
ufacturer wants to have his clothes cut
on the stylish pattern. Style costs moth
ing but the salary of the cutter, and |
know of one firm which pays $1,000 a
year to its cutter. He perhaps cuts less
than a pattern n day. From that one
model pattern 1000 may be reproduced,
some to be laid on cloth to sell ut SO
complete and duplicate on worSted or
tibet to bring four times as much.
This is an age of luxury. All you
have to do when you get back to Kan
sas City is to 20 TO the album and have
a look at the daguerreOtype of your IA
Their when he was married. Then rcmem-
Der that | told you they did not sell
ready made clothing in those days. but
had to depend upon a travelling tailor
Kansas City Journal.