@McTag,
You carry on cutting a crusty cob with a saw knife if you want to. Snot rags, torn up newspapers and dish cloths are not as great a technical advance to paper tissues as sliced bread was to what went before. At least when snot rags were one and six people didn't throw them away in the steeets and parks and you could scent them with any fragrance you could get your hands on rather than that faint,hygienic odour tissues have. And if it was hot and you were free of a cold you could knot the corners of a snot rag and use it as a hat. And you would look pretty silly in a tuxedo with a folded tissue sticking out of the breast pocket. Handkerchiefs are useful on many occasions. I admit tissues also are but nowhere near as useful as sliced bread. I have seen a handkerchief used as a fan belt lasting long enough to get to the nearest garage and thus save the £120 towing fee.
And a certain satisfaction could be obtained by selecting from the torn up newspapers, stuck on a nail in the whitewashed wall, one with a picture of Mrs Thatcher on it. Or Sir Alex Ferguson. One might have to have tissues specially printed in order to achieve such giddy heights of intellectual joy and then you would get bored with the same fissog day after day. (I trust--if not, at least a bit of a read is available whilst waiting.) Personalised tissues would be well out of reach of most people's pockets.
As an evolutionist I have often wondered when the mutation occurred which led to our need to remove the still clinging detritus from our rectal orifice after the expulsion of the remnants of the day before's intake of nutrient. Do you think it was before or after our middle finger grew proud of the rest?
Dishcloths can be used to throw at somebody or to slap their face from side to side with.
All in all I can't say I agree with your thesis that tissues beat sliced bread into a cocked hat. The cliche, "the best thing since sliced bread" is not going to be revised any time soon imo.
