Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1883 — The Overcoat Battle. [ARTICLE]

The Overcoat Battle.

Talk about the progress of chilization! Boast of the advantages we .enjoy in this last quarter of the nineteenth century! A moment’s comparison of the gyrations of body and contortions of countenance feat are necessary to get the average man inside his overcoat with the ease with which one of our savage ancestors wrapped a blanket about him will convince any one that all this boasting and babbling about fee wonderful things we have done are meaningless chatter. The first stage of fee proceeding, in whioh he gets one sleeve of the overcoat outside one arm, is accomplished without serious difficulty. It is when he attempts to put on the other sleeve and the button on his coat sleeve catohes on an unsuspected rent in the lining of his overcoat that his troubles and the fears of those within armrange begin. A wild wave of the right arm, a hunching of the left shoulder and a vigorous contortion of the right side of fee faoe conduct him usually past this ordeal. If it is near spring and the lining of that sleeve has come to be no longer a striking example of harmony and unity, there are still worse dangers before him. Something usually catches when his arm is half way through, and the spectacle feat the noblest work of God, the last and finest fruition of the creative power, then presents is caloulated to fill the heart of the red man and the savage with calm superiority, and make him thankful that he has refused to Accept civilization only as it is thrust upon him from the point of the bayonet. The unfortunate victim of the progress of civilization and society’s boasted advancements and improvements cranes his head forward, waves both arms, works first one shoulder and then the other in the vain endeavor to get down the superfluous amount of overcoat that insists on lying in a snug little roll across the back of his neck; finally, by dint of elevating first the sight and then the left side of his mustache to near proximity with his eyebrows, the feat is accomplished and his arm slides down the sleeve.

Then he almost dislocates his arms and his shoulders bump his ears in his herculean efforts to pull down his undercoat, which in the struggle has climbed to his shoulders and is lying securely under his overcoat collar. This part of the proceedings, however, is conducted wi hout serious danger or inconvenience to any one else, other than the necessity of beholding facial contortions more wonderful than any that marked previous stages of progress. Such is the progress of putting on an overcoat. Is it any wonder that Chief Joseph and the NezPerces, that Sitting Bull and his people have resisted to the death all attempts to make civilized Indians of them; to put them into a state where they would have to exchange the easy and dignified blaidfet for this emblem of torture ana civilization? — Boston Globe.