There is no doubt that too much clothing is an evil,
as well as too little; but clothing that swelters or leaves us with a cold
are both lesser evils than the exposure of esoteric charms
to stir the already heated blood of the `roue'. What we have to do,
as far as fashion and the public opinion it forms will allow,
is to suit our clothing to our climate, and to be truly modest and healthful
in our attire." Mrs. Nichols, speaking from her own experience,
has naturally devoted her book largely to a condemnation of woman's dress,
but man's dress as worn in the West is just as bad. The dreadful high collar
and tight clothes which are donned all the year round,
irrespective of the weather, must be very uncomfortable.
Men wear nearly the same kind of clothing at all seasons of the year.
That might be tolerated in the frigid or temperate zones,
but should not the style be changed in the tropical heat of summer common to
the Eastern countries? I did not notice that men made much difference
in their dress in summer; I have seen them, when the thermometer was ranging
between 80 and 90, wearing a singlet shirt, waistcoat and coat.
The coat may not have been as thick as that worn in winter,
still it was made of serge, wool or some similarly unsuitable stuff.
However hot the weather might be it was seldom that anyone was to be seen
on the street without a coat. No wonder we frequently hear of deaths
from sunstroke or heat, a fatality almost unknown among the Chinese.
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