"I have known men who gained international renown for their
strategy and 'sang froid' on the battlefield; men whose calmness
and deliberation have averted many a financial crisis and men whose
marvelous executive capacity and keen insight into human affairs have
won them great fortunes. I have seen these same men trying to pass
other pedestrians in a narrow hallway and act in a way which would
make a lunatic ashamed of himself.

"A drummer, who travels for a large Eastern jobbing concern, was once
entering the establishment of a firm which always bought heavily
from his house. One of the proprietors was just going out. They came
together in the doorway, and, before they could pass each other, a
rival salesman slipped by and sold the other partner a large bill of
goods.

"Congress ought to pass an appropriation for the purpose of teaching
people how to pass each other. If the surplus energy and brainwork
consumed in this task under present methods were applied to some more
useful purpose, a great reform movement would have been inaugurated."

THE MANNISH WOMAN.

"I don't want to achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said the
Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I nevertheless, aver
and maintain that the national evil of this great land is the mannish
woman.

"No, I don't mean the woman who can earn a living in some professional
pursuit that has hitherto been monopolized by men. Why, with our male
milliners, dressmakers, cooks, and what not, she has been driven to it
by man himself. Even the servant girl has become a thing of the past,
and the 'help' of the present day wears trousers,--not metaphorically,
as his female predecessor was wont to do--but literally. However, I'm
not going to discuss the servant-girl question. That is an old story
and a painful one--almost as painful as the mannish woman.

"This fearful and wonderful product of American progressiveness--this
worst type of monomaniac (man-o-maniac, one might more appropriately
term her) is driving men to drink. The mother-in-law is a thing of
beauty and a joy forever, compared to the mannish woman; the female
book-agent takes on new lustre and even the poetess is a desirable
companion beside her. The mannish woman wears a coat and vest and--no,
she doesn't wear trousers, because she doesn't dare, but a vertical
strip of braid down the middle of her skirt suggests the effect. From
a distance you couldn't distinguish between her and a m