Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1892 — LET THEM BAG AT THE KNEES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LET THEM BAG AT THE KNEES.

It I» Natural and Necessary, Besides Being a Badge of Usefulness and Piety. The intention of Providence is nowhere made more clear than in the

decree that the outer bifurcated garment of the male human animal shall, after a suitable period of utility, bag at the points of genuflexion, says the New York Sun. This feature of man’s attire is in many ways a mark of superiority; and, Instead of com-

bating the tendency of which it is a result, the man of true and honest pride in his manhood will be satisfied, yea, gratified, to see nature take its course. His contentment will be second only to that with which he notes the whitening of his hair, which, going on while his vigor of mind and body remains as it should be in his prime, becomes the most honorable decoration that it is possible for man to wear. The bagging of his trousers at the knees proclaims that man is animate;

the chintz coverings on the fluted legs-of' village pianos show no intermediate bag-, ging. It is a mark of humanity as distinguished from the lower orders of animals; the stork, one of the most conspicuous of creatures in the matter of legs, shows no bagging at the knees. The only brute that displays this ten-

dency in a noticeable degree is the elephant, and it is Significant that, ne, of the brute trtati.n. is the creature that comes next to man re intelligence, kindliness and the other qualities that go to make man su-

porior among ere? a ted things. Man's baggy appearance about > the, knees is also a badge of usefulness; the dude and other creatures that are placed on earth to fill chinks in the economy <■.' creation do not bag at the knees. But the dude is an incomplete

entity by himself. Without his “man” he is practically non-existent, and in his man we find the characteristic and ever-present evidence of superiority—his trousers bag at the knees, unless the dude makes this impossible by putting him in a livery that does not include trousers. That the bagging of one's trousers nt the

knees is an evidence of piety’ is so plain that there is no occasion for saying more on this point. There is no plane of existence inferior t< that of useful manhood in which bagging at the knees is an unfailing characteristic of its occupants. There is but one creature that is man’s equal, whose trousers do not bag at the knees; and—well, we would rather, honor bright, that the lessons ■ intended to be set forth

in these observations should all go to the deuce than that she should cease to be the exception. But the exception in this matter, as in most others, only goes to give

force to the rule. It is natural and necessary that the trousers of man should bag at the knees. It is unnatural and unnecessary to oppose this tendcncy;and the ninety and nine who look down and see their kneepans outlined and magnified midway ot their trousers’ legs should feel pride and not humiliation in.the

presence of one whose trousers’ legs conform to the equation of a-straight line.