MR COOK’S LUNCH

Southland Times, Issue 20831, 20 July 1929, Page 6

MR COOK’S LUNCH

The lunch-less Mr Cook may turn out to be one of the martyr pioneers of the race. Restaurants, of course, have the right to say how their customers will behave and what they will wear; but Mr Cook has struck a better blow for mankind by stalking out of the luncheon-room righteous in his shirtsleeves than ever ho did as the leader of the coal miners, and his argument that where women bare their arms men should have the right to remove at least their coats will be remembered as a stout declaration of war against stupid custom. Man, having existed for many years as the stronger and the brainier specimen of the species, has fallen behind in the matter of dress reform. Women have been discarding superfluous clothing with persistent and charming regularity, and they are healthier and more attractive as a result. Perhaps, some of the conservative members of the race may think they have taken off too much clothing, but it is a fact that women have at least been rational in their operations. Th,eir shorter skirts and lighter attire have run parallel with their increaser! freedom, and man is still struggling along wrapped up in heavy, ugly attire, his body overweighted, his neck choked with white boards and his legs encased in abominable tubes. In the United States the discarding of the coat in hot weather is accepted as a wise move, and the elimination of the stiff starched collar is looked on as a sane proceeding as the abandonment of ruffles. London is still in the hands of tradition. In the city men who break away from the top hats are regarded with grave suspicion, as if the style of a man’s head-covering determined the stability of his bank account.

Earnest writers will give the weighty decision that the Englishman is the best dressed man in the world. He is, according to certain standards, but will it be said that he is the most sensibly dressed? He may sneer at women’s servile adherence to fashions, their pursuit of that will-o’-the wisp, the mode, but the male is very little better, if he can claim any superiority at all, because within more restricted limits he, too, is the slave of fashion, tied securely to designs which offend every canon of sense. Mr Cook in shirtsleeves could not be more offensive than Mr Cook in a silk hat, frock coat and striped trousers, and while his shirtsleeves may not be so attractive as women’s bare arms they are at least a covering. Ono shudders to think of the terrible picture of a lunch-lcss Mr Cook, but if he is strong enough and determined enough he may organize a union of rebels who will by their very numbers. either force these conservative restaurants to forsake custom for customers, or induce private enterprise to establish eating places where only those who appear in shirtsleeves will be served. The reform can be carried out by peaceful methods; it will not be necessary to organize another general strike to impress this new liberty on the nation’s food-providers. By such martyrdoms great movements have been given such an impetus that they have carried all before them and Mr Cook’s angry hunger may yet light such a torch that will lead to the rationalization of men’s dress and ultimately carry its flame even to the golf links.