Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-01-14

after day, week after week, and month
after month. We have come to regard
that as comfortably heated house,
for winter, and yet when we get so
degrees in summer. natural atmos-
pheric heat in the shade, we puff and
fume and mop our brows and call it
suffocatingly hot day. 1t took many
generations Of protesting victims to
relegate the insanitary feather bed to
its merited desuetude. Even, now, in
many Of the remoter districts, this
Leviathan Of our sleep which almost
swallows it's victims may yet be found
doing its work on a generation that
knows not its capacity for evil.
Even so we have become the lega-
tees of our grandsires in that isother-
mic obsession concerning "fannels,"
meaning undertaking in general. by
which we delude ourselves that we
are cheating the doctor and the under
taker. AS matter of comfort, clean
illness, convenience and cover we have
come to wear in our civilized life a
suit of clothing under our street ap-
parel, and it is to this underclOthing
that we turn our attention in this
brief essay in protest. Designed chief
ly as an inner garment to hold the
moisture and calculations of the skin,
and of a texture suitable for constant
laundering to ensure cleanliness, 1t
has become the chief vehicle for
many mems hygenic Authorizations.
The large and increasing class who
carry in their wardrobes several sea
sonar' varieties of underclothing, al
ternating from the imperviously thick
to the gauzily thin .'fannels' is a
source Of wonder to that other class
who wonder what it is all about. 1t
stated individuals who affect these
varying degrees Of light, medium and
heavy underc;othing. and are pre-
pared to confront any range of
weather" on the sliding scale basis,
but the average man is so surfeited
with this flannel fetch that he is
a regularly consistent devotee of its
false and fraudulent worship.
The idea is simple and the fall easy.
He looks out of the window in the
morning and finds the wind easterly
and the sky cloudy. Pedestrians in
the perspective. have hands in their
pockets, and the old faithful Their
memcter is consulted as the infallible
underclothing gauge. 1t has fallen a
few degrees since yesterday when he
Wore light" weight. Inference-"med-
ium' weight for today, and medium
it is. At noon, sun comes out, the
wind shifts to southwest and a rising
temperature begins to show consider
able caloric units. Our brilliant hy-
gienic expert begins to perspire and
on the shady sides of the streets
feels a chilly sensation. Now it is
either one or the other to meet the sit
| uation, heavier fiannels to counteract
the chill, or lighter weight to check
the perspiration. He toddles home,
gets heated in the walk, becomes hot
| undertaking. Everything goes on
comfortably until night, when there is
q sudden change again, cold "norther'
drops down, and the last shift of the
day is made to the heavy weight, and
| our scientific dresser is satisfied that
he has executed several successful
flank movements on the weather. Next
day or two he has a slight infectious
sore throat" or cold. as result of
over-heatinG and his draft and re-
lates to his wondering friends how he
got it-"made a mistake in not putting
on my heavy weight earlier in the
day" And he believes it-as the cold
er the day the thicker the merino, the
warmer the day the thinner the bal
briggan Simple-and soporific.
This astute philosopher who spends
his days in "fooling' the weather is
simply fooling himself. Instead of at
tanning his end, the end attains him
by any one of a dozen processes de-
signed for the purpose of putting a
period to outraged nature. Instead of
dressing for indoors with his under
garments ne has been dressing for
outdoor temperatures and left him
self victim of his obsession when he
comes again into the summer warmth
of his house.
DR.. Bank says that those who do not
do this and wear the same weight of
undertaking the year round are SIM
ply allowing the skin to attend to its
normal functions unhampered. They
escape the penalties which nature
metes out to those who violate her
laws, not because they are naturally
strong, but because the protective en-
velope of the body is permitted to per-
form it's important duties of regulating
the body heat and the exhalations Of
the system. The logical dressing
should be for indoors in winter and