The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-07-07
VANITY BAGS
 INSTEAD OF
 VEST POCKETS

Woman's concern over the garb she wears enters mainly on the effect it will produce on other. people. So she welcomes the changes in season which enable her to appear, ever and anon, in an entirely different set of habiIiments, the inconvenience involved in such a u1utation being en- tirely overcome by thoughts of the real or fancied expression created by the new feathers. Not so the aver age male of the species, however, who wears his changes for purely utilitarian purposes and gets mad when changes must be made therein which interfere with some phase of the utility to which he has become accustomed. An excellent example of the truth of this profound obser- vation is furnished by the pickle" in which a man finds himself when warm weather compels him to lay off his waistcoat. A writer in the New York Sun, speaking no doubt largely from experience, delivers him. self sagely upon this important sub jeot:
 The male biped does not shed his watstcoat because he dislil<es it of itself. It is a useful thing, handler llldIl d pOChGL III a L. lie takes IL off because of the heat, and not without regret. The waistcoat holds so many things. The upper left hand pocket was made for pencils, foun- tain pens and cigars. Since the top of the ear was discarded as a pencil holder there has been nothing half so good as that pocket. The opposite upper pocket is just the place for rhe memorandum book. The watch sleeps alone in one of the lower pock- cts, across from the home of the mans knife or matchbox. The inside pocket of the waist coat is peculiarly adapted to carrying money. A thief cannot get 1t without cutting.
 When the waistcoat is hung up for the summer it's working contents must be put elsewhere. The coat, all ready overloaded, with handker- chiefs, wallets, letters. cigaret-c and communication tickets, is asked to take up what the turf reporters call staggering impost The trousers, with their standard burden of money and keys, can make little room for the articles evicted from the waist coat. So every June the man wonders whether he shall tether his watch to the lapel of his coat and let it joggle around in his breast-pocket, or whether he'll try it once more in the waist-band pocket of his trous- CTS and look upon it's face only after an exhibition of gymnastics. Shall the fountain pen be attached to his coat pocket or laid away until aut- umn? ..
 Man suffers for awhile. He finds himself without matches when he has a cigar, or without a pen when he has check-blank. His watch spells the fit of his coat. His memorandum book gets lost in the bottom of his coat pocket. He is all at sea, and merely because he is nos --le efficfeny creature that woman is. She puts all her junk and all her worries in the faithful hand bag. Fashions change In clothing and in bags, but the mess of small belongings Is always carried h the same way. If man would ape woman In this respect he would be moro comfortable. He need not carry a silken reticule; a canvas sack would do, with a strap to go over the shoul- der. Perhaps some of the fellows who carry brief cases are taking a leaf from womans book. Al Smith once said if you held up a reforrner and looked in his bricf-case, you ! would find sandwiches in 1t, not great public documents. A brief-case would hold cigars, pencils and hand | kerchiefs. Maybe in time all men 1 will carry these leather cases just as all women carfy bags.