The Washington herald., 1917-07-13

"Oh. you women" exclaimed the
man scornfully. you always judge
man by his clothes. You turn up
your nose at Brown because he wears
a shabby coat, yet the man has a
soul of gold and is worth a whole
battalion of your tailor's dummies"
The woman laughed. We'll" she
replied. Il can only judge a man by
the outward and visible manifesto
tions of his personality. / can't see
I Browns soul, and l can see his coat.
Moreover, a mans soul may be the
result of heredity for which he is not
responsible. but his coat represents
his own individuality and achieve
ments. 1t shows his judgment. his
taste. his knowledge of the world, his
mental pose. even his energy and
ability to do things, so it isn't such a
bad sign post after all.
This is a deceitful world in which
things are seldom what they seem,
and I'm not fatuous enough to be-
lieve that there are any infallible
rules by which we can size up our
fellow creatures at sight. Even the
science of physiognomy is a broken
reed on which to lean in judging
people.
The smallest. mildest looking. most
lady-like man l ever met had mur-
dered at various times seven different
people. The shrewdest business man
1 know. and the one who can see
farthest into a milestone. has a round.
placid. fat face. and dull eyes that
look as II he were half asleep all the
time. and Is the one individual in a
crowd that you would pick out for a
customer If you were selling gold
bricks
"As for women-good Heavens-don't
you know soft, baby faced women,
with innocent eyes that are as hard
as rocks and as wicked as Jezebel
herself? And don't you know big
commanding looking women with Ro-
man noses and square chins who al
ways ask their husbands If they may
go down town, and who can't decide
on a hat without taking six people
along to help them make up their
minds? No, put no faith in the con-
formation of anybodys features. but
show me a man or a woman's dress
and I'm like Cuvier with his bone. ]
can construct the whole animal from
that fragment"
Possibly clothes make the woman"
agreed the man. They are both mys-
terious that 1 can neither button nor
unbutton. but how would you go about
judging a man by his clothes?"
WELL" said the woman, Suppose
was a merchant who had advertised
for an employee clerk, or a book
keeper, or a cashier say. Suppose the
first man who applied for the job
was a good looking young fellow, but
he was untidy. He was unshaven
and shorn with a stubbly beard on
his cheeks, and his clothes were rum
pied as if he had slept in them, and
spotty and dirty.
81 wouldn't hire him because his
clothes would tell me that he was
lazy, and that he would be the sort
of a man who does his work in a
slap dashy. hit or miss way, the
easiest way, whether it's the right
way or not. and that he would work
with his eye on the clock and drop
his pen in the middle of a word IL 5
o'clock happened to strike. His
clothes would tell me that he lacked
energy and didn't like to take trouble
because If he wasn't just naturally
shiftless, he would shave and brush
his clothes and press them, and keep
himself looking tidy. No man who
thought more of ease than he did of
his personal appearance would get a
job with me.