In wet weather it is absolutely necessary to turn up the bottoms of your trousers, to keep them from fraying.
I would suggest a general overhauling of clothes about once a month. At the end of each season the heavy or light garments should receive a final brushing and be stored away in a trunk, chest, or spare room with, as I have already advised, newspapers between them, and some camphor or moth destroyer as an extra precaution. Overcoats, which are in such general use, may be hung during their season of service, but should be frequently brushed and well shaken.
The economy of space thus observed in the arrangement of clothes in a room will make it an easy matter when about to travel to pack one's wardrobe in a trunk.
A shoe bag is a great convenience. A simple canvas arrangement can be purchased very cheaply, or one of your fair friends can make you one. Your shoes should be placed in this and put at the bottom of the trunk in a corner. Otherwise you should wrap your shoes and boots in paper. If you travel with two trunks, one should be reserved for your outer garments and the other for your shirts and underclothes. With one trunk, a shirt box is as much an article to be desired as a shoe bag, but in lieu of this the shirts should be placed in the first or top tray, the underclothes and hose in the second, and the outer garments in the bottom. A small space in the top can be reserved for your ties and handkerchiefs. Toilet articles are carried in a hand bag; waterproofs, overcoats, and umbrellas and walking sticks in a shawl strap. Your silk hat has but one place, and that is in a hatbox. You can put a Derby in a corner of a trunk but a silk hat would be ruined.
When a long journey is taken, it is economy in the end to purchase an extra steamer trunk for your underclothes and linen. Trunks are not expensive, and you will find that by not crowding your clothes you will save in the long run.
Always keep in your room a small bottle of a good grease-remover as well as one of ammonia, some soft rags, and a chamois for general cleaning purposes. An expenditure of a little over a quarter of a dollar will provide you with these necessaries.
Never lounge around your room in your street or evening dress. If you are to stay awhile, or if you come in for the night, take off your clothes and put on a bath robe or your pyjamas if you do not possess a dressing gown, which is not a necessity.
At your office you should always have an old coat to wear, and if it be summer have one of linen. To sit around in one's shirt sleeves, even at one's place of business, is not characteristic of the gentleman.
Every young man starting in life and wishing naturally to take a part in social functions and to become a member of that body indefinitely known as society, is confronted with the problem of clothes. A few years ago the ordinary changes of morning, afternoon, and evening were all that were requisite, but to-day, with special costumes for various sports and pastimes, the outlook at first glance to one of limited income is not encouraging. And yet a man with a modest salary can dress very well on two to three hundred dollars a year, and even less. It is only the first step which costs. One must have a foundation or a slight capital with which to start. After that with a little care expenses can be easily regulated.