The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-01-17
WHO, IN SooTH?
TYRANNY OF CLOTHES'

Marguerite Mooers-M Marshall in the New
 York Evening World.
 "Clothes and all their little accessories are without doubt the invention of the devil"
 "HAT Is the frank declaration of Mrs.
 John Lane, who in her newest book,
 ! Talk of the Town" discourses en- tertainingly on "The Tyranny of Clothes But Mrs. Lanes really interesting dis covery is that woman is not the only sufferer from this despotism. It also sways the men, And, womanlike, Mrs. Lane is glad of it.
 ''The only solace I have in the tyran- ny under which I languish is that Adam languishes also.e sl,e exults. T fsieiee to watch his struggles into pair of tight new gloves. love to see him when his necbtie has slipped under his ear It is a comfort to observe his an- gush far away from tailor and the one he loves best when nall plays havoc with his only pair, and he Is reduced to a spectaclel I was so pleased the other day at dinner party, when Adam came bashfully down in an evening coat and shepherd plaid trousers-the guardian angel who had packed his kit bag having been a little absentminded.
 Ut is great comfort to feel that man also suffers from the tyranny of clothes. Even more than woman he is the victim of clothes that won't go to- gether.
 "Show me that great and independent man who would dare to walk down Firth avenue in a frock coat and straw hat, or disturb the severe propriety of the scene by wearing a silk hat and Norfolk jacket. What heroic soul not waiter would venture forth in the early morning in his evening clothes?
 s,rhere are things, it is a comfort to know, which even a man cannot do, and man issupposed to be able to do almost anything. I defy a novelist to put his hero's hat at a rowdy angle over his ear at d crucial point in his career and leave him still heroicl
 "The Achilles heel of a man is his hat. He must guard that as he does his reputation, for it is at once his strength and his weakness.
 I only another name for convention, are such that if the greatest man in Amer ica were to walk with all his accustomed dignity from the stock exchange to Broadway with trailing peacock feather attached to the band of his imnTrculate silk hat, he would be followed by mob in two seconds and the outraged maj esty of the law would take him into GUS | tody as suspicious character. | "Eyery policeman is an arbiter of fash ion. To him any originality in clothes means either crime or insanity. "It Is only the exceptional man who has the courage of his clothes and who would venture on any independence of dress. A woman will if she has a great and | cheeky soul. rejoice to come out in some thing awful1y daring-that is, if she is perfectly sure of herself-but what man would have the heroism to do that? "There have been certain great his | toric characters who have set the fash ions," Mrs. Lane admits, "who have i'm mortalized themselves by aid of a neck | tie, the curve of silk hat or the cut of waistcoat, but these are lonely in- stances and the exceptions that prove
 the rule.
 NO man is ever heroic about his clothes; but such instances of liberty as he does enjoy are, to be quite just entirely due to the bold Americans. CO lumbus discovered America, but the Amer jeans discovered the straw hat.'' 1 However, bad as the case is for men | they have one consolation-pockets. q assure those feminine pioneers who | clamor for their rights that above every thing else they should demand an equal | ity of pockets.
 Try to imagine a man doing his CT rands with a purse, handkerchief ano | shopping list in one hand, the tail or ms skirt in the other, his umbrella under one arm, making an effort to keep HIS head clear for business problems ana wary eye out for motors. He couidn do it.
 Such is the tyranny of clothes that though we may be obliged to starve, w' dare not be out of fashion, Mrs Lan' | concludes, after discussing ball gown'