The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-08-08
CHARACTER SHOWN BY SHOES
GERMAN INVESTIGATOR READS
BY MANNER HEAD AND FOOT
GEAR ARE WORN.

LONDON, Aug. SIT takes Ger
man savant to discover big meanings
in little things that the ordinary OBJ
server regards as of no special cOnse-
quence. Prof. Gross of Leipzig has de-
voted several years to the study of
headgear and footwear. He has now
given the world the benefit of his
strenuous labors in a work on the psy-
chology of hats and boots. According
to the German professor, by aid of
his book you can spot a mans true
character at once by noting how he
wears his hats and boots.
For instance, the hat worn exactly
the head is a sign that man is uIt
right, but a pedant and a bOor. Should
it turn out that Herr Gross wears his
hat in this fashion one might con-
clude that there is something in his
theory. AS it is, one must take his
statement on trust. Men who are ami
able and full of the milk of human
Kindness he tells us, wear the hat a
little on one side. But the wearing of
the hat very much on one side is an
ger. The man who wears his hat on
the back of his head is in a bad way.
1t shows that he is reckless and given
to spending more than he makes. The
further back the hat is, the nearer
to bankruptcy lis the we'arer. You
must be careful how you tackle man
who goes the opposite extreme ard
wears his hat pulled down over his
forehead 1t is proof that he has an
ugly temper.
Another highly compromising thing,
il seems is ones bood-heel record.
Prof. Gross can read it as you run.
"Scarpology" is the name of this
science. 1t says that a man who wears
down the heels of his boots equally
may be put down as energetic and
trustworthy. If they are worn down
On the outer side, he has imagina ton
and an adventurous spirit. If they are
worn down on the inner side-and
that is where most folk wear them
down, as any shoemaker will tell you
he is weak and undecided
Pirates.
l don't suppose that Prof. Gross
will ever have cause to complain that
his work has been pirated in America.
But there are mary German authors
who complain that they don't get fair
play here. Privy Councillor Leur of
Munich has been commissioned by
them to agitate in favor of the aboli
ton of what they describe as "the
piratical American copyright law"
Herr Lehr has begun his task by ask
ing prominent German writer's to give
them an approximate estimate of the
losses they have sustained through
their works being practically printed
in America.
Shan F. Bullock has been bewailing
the dearth of honest and stimulating
literary criticism. 1.-The days of plain
speaking, not less than of high think
ing, are no more" he says. I'VE must
dissemble our hates. Constituencies,
that IS the prevailing literary fashion.
Because of motives, some of them
good, many of them bad. We persuade
ourselves to be sentimental and good
and kind, to dabble in whitewash, to
put our tongue in our cheek, repress
the truth and make swans of our ugly
ducklings. The thing that pays is the
thing that matters. In literature our
standard is royalties, in criticism, ad
vertisements. Our goods are small and
facility-these things we have il
plenty; but the thing we have not is
greatness, or anything near it. Would
it really matter if all save five. or ten
at most, of our generations of novelists
were suppressed?
Women are catching it again. The
recent publication of an erOtic I.ovel
by a women has led London newspa-
per to make inquiries concerning the
increase of this sort of fiction. Frank
Denny, the well-known Strand book
seller, was very emphatic in the ex-
preston of his views. Literature"
he said, lis being prostituted to COM
mercialism, and the worst offenders,
both in writing and in reading ,alt,
women He declared that the things
now being writer. by Englishmen We're
Infinitely worse in their subtle ero
tic suggestiveness than anything lola