New-York tribune., 1911-01-30
MANS PTLCHRITCDE.

The worm has turned at last. and its
sting is sharper than a serpents tooth.
The occasion justifes the mixed meta
phor. 1t all began long time ago. when
an artist complained that American fem
mime beauty did not agree in the least
with the proportions Of the classic Greek
beauty of the Venus Of Melos. The OBJ
vious answer was promptly forthcoming
$50 much the worse for classic Greek
beauty" II was a gallant American man
who made it. American womanho0d did
not deim 10 notice the attack-at Least,
not in print. More recently the physical
director of one Of our universities has
published his conviction that woman is
departing from the distinctive symmetry
and softness Of line of her sex and ap-
preaching more closely the angularity OF
man. And still American beauty has
preserved a dignifed silence. There were
the covers of our periodicals and the
illustrations Of the stories between them
to make reply for her. At the same time
daring male critics of the English woman
EXPRESSED the opinion that she, too, was
going off, in looks.
1t is from England, home Of the woman
militant, that the answer of the sex
comes at last 1t is not in the form or
refuta ton, but Of counter attack
which puts the presuming male critic on
the defensive. A fashionable English
woman portrait painter informs men
Englishmen more particularly-that they
are losing whatever good looks may ever
have been theirs. Now, his facial merit
Is what bothers man least of all after
he has passed the years Of his youth and
its vanites. but he remains sensitive on
the subject Of his figure to the end or his
days And here an unnamed English
woman novelist adds gall to the worm
wood Of her sister artist. Military men,
she savs--one sees the admiring Eve of
old peeping from behind the modern crit
ical woman-are as handsome as ever
they were, and so are naval men ana
mighty Nimrods, but "the average busl-
ness man and the loafer Of all classes
cannot walk properly, and have duh.
'unattractive features, with a slack hg-
cure" What slam" 10 revive for the
moment a vanished slang word. Leaving
the .loafers" aside, we wonder a little
at the injustice Of this attack on the IN
offensive business man, when 1t is the
artist and the physical director who
started the trouble.
However, better times are coming, for
man Is 10 be put into corsets by bis
tailor Not that corsets for men are a
new thing or have ever been totally dis
carded by them since the days Of Count
d'Orsay and Of the Marquis de Leuville,
least Of all by military men, who, in days
of peace at least, have time 10 consider
their coiffure and the rest Of their ap-
pearance. But, having been squeezed
into the article mentioned. man will be
clothed In curving tight-fitting clothes,
no doubt TO restore the balance lost by
woman's alleged growing angularity.
But will he? The tailor proposes, but
man disposes The ultimate source OF
his fashions is London. where their ten
dency is decided by the sartorial prefer
ences Of the Kingdoms fount Of all honor.
During the last reign loose garments
were the thing, and no doubt men en-
deavored to I'll them. or, at least, 10 look
as II they did. The new inspiration Of