THE MENACE OF PANTS.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 83, 11 October 1912, Page 6

THE MENACE OF PANTS.

THE SANITY OF CHIDLEY

Now that gentlemen engaged Jn the* tailoring trad© engage in heart-to-heart talks with prospective customers, Mr. Fred. Niblo, of "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" fame, thfeks it time to get off a littlo monologue on, "duds." And as he is the best-dressed actor Sydney has seen for many a day, the "Sun just lets him ramble on : — "Thero was a time," he says, '.'when, every village blacksmith was a 'gent's tailor, and the bucks of that day were undressed by their valet with a burglar's jemmy and a screwdriver. "When a man wanted to renwV hia hat he couldn't. It was riveted on to his collar button, and when he *ai down suddenly it sounded like someone slamming the stove door. "If his ear was itchy he couldn't scratch it, and the common red ant getting through the cracks in his duds made the picnic season a misery to him. "To get caught in a shower of rain meant that be camo home all rusted.

"Later, man started to climb into pants, and look for his collar buttm under the clothes bureau. From that day it was popularly supposed that no man could appear in public without

trousers. "From that moment the tailor had him in his thrall, and man's degeneration elates from then. "The Roman conquered the world wearing a toga. As soon as the Roman took to pants, then the world, as well as his tailor, got his measure. .

"In the samo way, no savage rac<? is ever vanquished until you have bunK trousers on their warriors. I tell you that's where the Japs, aro going to miss the 'bus. They got into pants too early in their national development. If they'd stuck to the kimona they'd have licked the world before this.

"Have, yon ever thought who the sartorial path-finder is:' He is the Johnny. Tailors can get him to stand for anything. He will wear garments so loose that you can hardly fiud him in an impenetrable jungle of tweeds, and so tight that you think his tailor is a paperhanger. "The tailors got the Johnny to wear the woolly hat, and to follow up with t<he Tyroleso yodelling article, also the Ponto overcoat, and also winsome effects in ties, and he it was, too, who inaugurated the hot sox era.

"All mankind takes his'orders from the tailor through the Johnny, who is really a youth possessing the very highest order of courage. You only realise that when, in. the privacy of your bedroom, you try on the styles he has pioneered. "But., as my literary friend, Trvin S. Cobb, remarks in his latest talk on clothes, it only takes nine, tailors to make a man, while to make a woman it takes a taxidermist, an ostrich farm, a powder mill, a paint mixer, a. chemist, a jewellery establishment, a furrier, a diamond mine, a dermatologist, . an: enamel factory, a button factory, and. heaven knows what else.

"The whole world is working to dress women. Do you realise it ? Everyman to-day is .working so that woman may have clothes. So if we could only get back to nature there 1 d be no need to work at all. But what are we doing? We are simply allowing the. tailors to urge on the Johnny to clothes absurdities that will soon make our duds as. decorative as women's. Can't anything be done to stop us? As it is. we're all working overtime.

"What about getting the, Lord Mayor to convene a meeting in the Town Hall?' Let Cbidley be the first speaker. Tfe seems the only man in the community, judging'by the garb he used to wear around the street, who is sane on the: clothes subject "