SHORT SKIRTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4511, 5 January 1923, Page 4

SHORT SKIRTS.

CONSTERNATION. IN KANSAS. “Skirts of female employees must not. be higher than nine inches above the ground.” This astounding edict of Lieutenant Walter Z. Fitzsimmons, police inspector of uniforms in Kansas, has brought upon him the wrath of at least 300 women and girjs engaged in the municipal concerns—hospital nurses, clerks, police matrons, and others. The ruling follows the ultimatum of the Kansas City Telephone Company that, its operators may not wear dresses higher than two inches below the knee , and that “pink things” may not appear, beneath the openwork sweatees now commonly affected by the flapper. “Two inches below the knee” is not modest, or proper, according to Lieut. Fitzsimmons, who, at 32 years of age, has brought upon (himself the flapper's reproach of being a “dub.” "I am not so old that I cannot admire a well turned ankle and a bit more,” he deciares’, “but I believe that the display of too much feminine charm wrecks office efficiency, as male employees thrown into contact with girls who wear modern dress spend more time in thought than in work,” His order is not restricted to defining the length of the skirt. An .openwork style of dress beneath the waist is strictly forbidden —“Waists must not be too low cut, and under no circumstances may the garments worn beneath waists be seen. Sleeves must be of modest length. The Telephone Company’s ruling was accepted in silence, but th® police announcement is so much more drastic that something like revolt is brewing.