The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-31
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

times just happen. I was on the train the other afternoon reading story in the American Magazine, "The Girl With the Leopard-skin Coat."fby Maude Wood ruff Newell. Only woman could have written it.
 Now the thing which struck me was the longing of the heroine who had been raised in squalor, when a kid seeing the picture of a woman in a leopard-skin coat. and how her heart had yearned for one like it until it became an ob- session and hunted her until she got one.
 It seems she worked in a store for three years in order to save enough to buy the coat of her childish fancy, and after she had bought it, her extrava- gance caused her to be suspected, and she told that her uncle had given it to her, but being an old skinflint 1t only caused more gossip. But l am not go- ing to follow the thread of the story.
 
 Call it coincidence or what you please
 
 magazine and while my eyes were look ing at the pictures. and my mind was trying to straighten out the tangle of woman's love of dress and how coat had lifted a waif out of the alley and dirt and. made fine woman of her, both in dress and feeling-a man came along and popped down in the seat by me.
 
 Now. ordinarily, I would have been but for the moment he broke in on the conundrum of the moral power in dress for even the great philosopher Car lyle had a philosophy of old clothes Clothes may not make the man, but they certainly have much to do with woman.
 once heard a well bred, well read, and splendidly poised woman of the world confess there was nothing so spiritually exalting as to enter a drawing room of cultured people with the consciousness that one was perfectly hated. gowned and shod Of course no man can ap- preciate her feeling and therefore will make light of her confession; but I am sure without being able to prove it that there is sustaining influence in being well dressed.
 It must be akin to the masculine feel ing of being we'll shaven. I remember once hearing a very substantial and dom- inant male confess that with a days growth of beard on his face he was easily set aside by his own office force when any question came up which or dinarily he would settle without any sug- gestion, but that if he went unshaven for several days any stranger could get the mastery over him, for he seemed to lose all self-respect
 
 It's funny how a little thing will up- set even a great man. 1 recall how one of the greatest preachers in the south utterly failed in preaching the convention sermon because when he be- gan he discovered that his collar had become unbuttoned and all during the sermon he was trying surreptitiously to fasten it instead of just stopping and doing it and then going on with his preaching. Down in his subconscious- ness was the fact that he was not ap- bearing at his best and it got the best of his discourse.
 So you see after all the question raised by pr. Hibbs at the Pastors union in regard to the proper way in which to garb themselves for the Liberty parade really had some merit in it, although it can hardly be said that 1t was dis cussed on it's merits It gave too great an opportunity for joking. It started off seriously and wound up in riot of fun. soon saw that the parsons were as far apart on dress as they were In doc trine
 I believe it was the late sam Jones who said that preacher had no need of a dress suit. I fortunately had younger brother, just making his debut society set in Atlanta, and I wished on him my dress suit, though I dare say, there are as many dress suits among the city pastors in Birmingham as there are Prince Alberts. I freely admit that when I re-entered secular journalism fell from grace and reinvested in swallow tail, for I soon learned that I was expected to attend social functions where the costume de rigeur was ai- most obligatory
 But l am about to forget '"The Girl With the Leopard-skin Coat and the man who sat by me on the train. Now here is the strange thing about it, for when he began to talk to me it was about an overcoat that he needed and wanted and had just made up his mind that he was going to have it or bust l soon forgot about the girl and her ab- sorbing wish for a cloak, for her story was fiction, while I was listening to a real man who was bent on keeping cov- cred.
 He was a hard working man who had dollar in halves, and he had found it difficult to live and support his grow ing family until a great desire for an overcoat got hold of him and he Just made up his mind that he was going to get better position and the urge of the coat gave him the ambition to do or die, and he was happy because he was going to save up enough before winter set in to get the one he had already