What
snips at the collar and lapels! What a mechanical and ridiculous cut
about the flaps! What buttons in front that are never meant to button,
and yet are no ornament! And what an exquisitely absurd pair of
buttons at the back! gravely regarded, nevertheless, and thought as
indispensably necessary to every well-conditioned coat, as other bits
of metal or bone are to the bodies of savages whom we laugh at. There is
absolutely not one iota of sense, grace, or even economy in the modern
coat."
Still more deplorable is the ceremonial hat of the period. That a
Christian can go about unabashed with a shiny black cylinder on his head
shows what civilization has done for us in the way of taste in personal
decoration. The scalplock of an Apache brave has more style. When an
Indian squaw comes into a frontier settlement the first "marked-down"
article she purchases is a section of stove-pipe. Her instinct as to
the eternal fitness of things tells her that its proper place is on the
skull of a barbarian.
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