SHIRT-SLEEVES.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3113, 8 February 1879, Page 4

SHIRT-SLEEVES.

, It ia daring the hot weather that the weakness of the human shirt-sleeve is most conspicuously shown. The wristband droops over the wrist, becomes moist and limp, and maddens the wearer as he vainly tries to induce it to retire to the seclusion of its true home in the coatsleeve. This proneness of the wrist-band is dueto the inherent viciousness of the shirt sleeve as at present constructed. If the sleeve is made long enough to permit the ellow to be bent, it is too long when the arm is straight. So far human ingenuity has been unable to devise any plan for making a shirt-sleeve which shall always be long enough, and never either too long or too short. It is perhaps a mere arbitrary conventionalism which decrees that woman may dispense with any and all sleeves, provided she feels so disposed, while man must wear at least shirt-sleeves. Could we cast our shirtsleeves to the wind, we could emulate the coolness and comfort with which the sex endures midsummer heat; but this must not be. There was a young unmarried clergyman in Essex, Massachusetts, who some years ago, after wrestling in vain with his exasperated shirt-sleeves, recklessly cut th<m off just below the shoulder, and, being a particularly nice and dainty person, with his own band stitched a lace ruffle around what he might call the stumps of the amputated arms: What was the result t At first coldness and elation of spirits, but afterwards ruin and remorse. His washerwoman was prone to gossip, and before long the whole village knew that in the clergyman's weekly " wash " were always to be found sleeveless garments ornamented wjth lace. Upon this slender foundation was built a most appalling story of clerical profligacy, and .although a clerical court of enquiry explained the whole affair, and acquitted the clergyman of the charges of immorality, his usefulness was destroyed, and he resigned his charge.—New York Tines.