Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1897 — Christmas Gifts for Men. [ARTICLE]

Christmas Gifts for Men.

It is a great relief to note that some philanthropic writers throughout the country are engaged in telling jtvhat sort of Christmas gifts men would like. The writers arenot all successful, and they

reveal frequently the inspiration of woman’s ideas, man’s innate modesty and selfeffacement precluding him from speaking for himself. But somebody should speak for him before another Christmas has elapsed. It is recorded in the seventh chapter of “The Autobiography of Pharaoh I.” that the monarch’s wife gave him for a Christmas .present a necktie which he could not wear without inviting insurrections in all Egypt. That’s where the Christmas necktie joke began, the Christmas cigar*joke following it, when Sir Walter Raleigh first amazed England by puffing tobacco fumes. The jokes have endured, but the joke has not —not if the man knows it. He may have an incorrigible passion for neckties, but to have his own wife go out and pay out his own money for a tie which he will wear only on dark nights and when his coat collar is turned up is what he objects to. The trouble being, probably, that a woman buying something for a man sees it merely as it looks on the counters, while the man sees it in its relation to himself and to the uses to which it must be put What is needed is a Wives’ Information bureau, where husbands can leave a list

of the presents they would find acceptable, with details concerning, • size, color and weight. The wife would simply have to join the subscribers, find her husband’s list, borrow the money from him and give him a happy surprise on Christmas. This scheme is worth considering. It ought to take a great burden off the ladies’ minds, anyhow.