IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIRT FRONTS AND CUFFS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alexander Melville Clark at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 20th April 1870. A communication from abroad by Effingham
Howard Nichols Warner, of the City, County, and State of New
York, United States of America.
I, ALEXANDER MELVILLE CLARK, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the
County of Middlesex, Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIRT FRONTS AND CUFFS," to be
as follows:
This Invention has for its object to furnish an improved shirt bosom
or front, which shall be so constructed that its detached halves may be
used with equal facility as cuffs, so that it may be worn as a bosom or
as cuffs, as occasion may require, and it consists in the shirt bosom
made in two parts, so formed that they may be worn as cuffs, as herein-
after more fully described. The two halves or parts of the bosom are
made separate with their upper end edges hollowed out or concaved to
In the upper
correspond with the form of the neck of the wearer.
corner of each of the halves is formed a button hole to button upon the
button of the neck band of the shirt. The upper edges of the two parts

page_text: are slotted, said slots being about the same distance from the said button
hole as that button hole is distant from the forward edge of said parts.
When wearing the parts as a shirt bosom the forward edges of said parts
are overlapped and connected to each other by buttons or studs in the
same manner as the overlapped edges of an ordinary shirt bosom. The
button holes before mentioned are buttoned upon the button of the neck
band of the shirt, upon which button the ends of the neck band of the
collar are also buttoned. The neck band of the collar is then passed
into the slots formed in the upper edges of the two halves of the front,
so that the greater part of the upper edges of the said parts may be
upon the outer side of the neck band of the collar, being kept in place
by the turnover part of said collar or by the necktie. In the middle
part of the upper edge of each of the parts of the front is formed a button
hole, which when said parts are used as cuffs is buttoned upon the wrist
band button of the shirt. In the outer lower corner of the parts is also
formed a button hole, and in the outer edge of the upper part of the
pieces is formed another button hole, the said button holes being
designed to receive the button or stud by which the parts when used as
cuffs arc secured around the wrists of the wearer, the position of the
last-named button hole being regulated by the size of the wrist of the
wearer. To the lower front corner of each of the parts may be attached
a button, which when said parts are worn as cuffs may be buttoned into
the button hole first mentioned to more closely confine them to the
wrists of the wearer.
The parts may be made of linen, paper, or other suitable material, and
may be made plain or plaited, as may be desired.
It will be observed that the surface of the parts exposed, when worn
as a shirt bosom, are concealed or covered by the coat sleeves when
worn as cuffs, so that they may be worn first in the one capacity until
their exposed parts are soiled, and then may be worn in the other
capacity until the other parts are soiled.