Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1900 — PAPER COLLARS STILL IN STYLE. [ARTICLE]

PAPER COLLARS STILL IN STYLE.

Urge Quantities Arc Still Hushctmred for Western Trade. “It may surprise yon to know that paper collars are coming into demand again,” said a traveling salesman who handles men's furnishing goods, “and it ipay also surprise you to know that the demand right along, for years and years back, has been large enough to keep three or fonr good-sized factories going continually at full capacity. 1 used to wonder what became of the output, for I never saw anybody wearing the things, and finally I made it my particular bus! css to ascertain. I was astonished at the extent of the trade. It reaches all over the West and Southwest, and along the entire Northern frontier, from Seattle to Bangor. \TOerever the towns or camps are widely scattered, implying, I suppose, that whqre laundries are scarce and poor, there is a demand for paper collars. The hugest shipments, however, go into the lumber districts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the men wear an outlandish costume peculiar to the region and not to be fonnd elsewhere on the continent. Their “Sunday’ trousers, for Instance, are generally plaids seven or eight Inches square, in the brightest colors Imaginable; their bats are in solid red, bine, green or purple, and a paper collar on a fancy flannel shirt is considered a very effective combination.

“Thousands of gross go to dealers in the small towns throughout the timber belt op there, and almost as many are sent Into the Adirondack counties of Northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 1 noticed that there was an especially large and steady demand from the maple sugar district—in fact, there seems to be some sort of mysterions affinity between paper collars and forests, leading people who earn their livelihood in the great woods to yearn for paper collars when they ’dress up.’ It wonid be n nice problem for students. Still another section where the sales have been enormous is in the northern end of Nebraska, where the country is settled up almost entirely by Swedes and Norwegians. I was amused, in looking over the order book of one of the big factories, to note that the collars sent to Xehraswa were all of one pattern—a peculiarly hideous, narrow, little turned over, the design of which must have been Imported from Europe. I have seen pictures of Baltic peasants wearing such chokers, bat have never micountered one in the life. To return to the point In reference to an increase in the demand, I know positively that it has almost doubled since the Ist of August and that several new factories are now in coarse of equipment. Where the new trade comes from I haven’t the least idea."—New Orleans Times^Democrat.