The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-06
SUMNER CLOTHES.
Dress Reform That Was Promised
Has Failed,

The dress reform promised for a sea-
son or two by the bicycle and golf
seems finally to have failed. There was
at one time good hope that the trouser,
the most ungainly and irrational and
ridiculous article of apparel ever de-
VlSed. was about to go" The nine
teenth century saw the introduction of
It, We do not recall any instance in
portraiture of its appearance before the
year 1880. Washington and his con-
temporaries, like the Captain bold of
Halifax. wore 'regimental small
Clothes" a decent and cleanIv garment
which did not draggle and accumulate
mud. and which. combined with boots
Tor rough riding, or with pumps for
occasions of ceremony, left nothing to
be desired. Thomas jefferson we he
! lieve, wore trousers and was one of the
pioneers of that hateful practice The
trouser somehow came to be regarded
as a symbol of democracy in the early
days, possibly because it reduced all
human legs, shapely or unshapely. to
the same level of ungainliness. The
contemporary populist, as he looks on
great old Bryan, sloping slowly to the
west, cannot imagine w j. in golf
stockings and slippers. And yet Mr..
Bryan has presentable legs. and would
cut far more dignified figure in gar
ments that should reveal their comeli-
ness But evidently it would be. his
political ruin to wear SO sensible a
thing
The abolition of the trouser is the
chief desideratum for a rational sum
mer costume for men. It seems that
that desirable consumma ton is indefi-
nitely postponed. The men of 1886 and
1897 who boldly wore breeches and hi
cycle stockings to their places of bust
ness would not this year venture to be
seen IN them, except when actually
aStride of wheel. if even then. But
the next desideratum, the soft shirt .
is gaining in favor the philanthropist
may rejoice to note Starch is the chief
enemy of human comfort in warm
weather. No man can be comfortable
inclosed in a stiff decentralization of
starched linen. The soft flannel shirt,
once known as "Crimean," is an ideal
summer envelope, which, however, re-
quires some courage to wear. AS Lowell
said it takes a hero to walk down Pic
cadilly in a SLOUGH hat at the height of
the London season. But the haberdash-
ers now exhibit CONNECTIONS of I'M
starched cotton which reconcile comfort
with convention, and in which the most
timorous of mortals need not fear to
] be seen.
! Nobody whose festival occasions take
him about New York can have failed
| to remark, with a touch of envy, that
| the most nationally dressed human
/ brother he encounters are Cinnamon.
And what the Chinese wears are simply
/ pa jamas," in which no Caucasian
( would dare to be seen outside of his
own bed room. 1t is true that the
Chinaman so far truckles to custom as
to adopt the trouser. or the drawer. to
| the despair of sculptors, inSomuch that
we have not heard of any yearning on
the part of any sculptor to model any
Iaundryman. But. race prejudice being
laid aside. what an admirable summer
costume it is that the mongol sports
loose easy flowing. entirely decent and
with not a trace anywhere of the starch
which is the chief ingredient of his
trade. He sinks the shop in his private
habiliments When we have the cour
age to initiate the mongol in his summer
dress we shall be far more comfortable
and far more intrinsically respectable
than we now are.-New York Times.