TANGO DRESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1220, 14 March 1914, Page 4

TANGO DRESS.

- PROTESTS BY WOMEN

FASHIONS DENOUNCED

Indecorous costumes were discussed at the meeting of the Australasian Women’s Conference in Melbourne last week. Miss Shiel moved: “That all members of this association refrain from the prevailing fashion of indecorous attire.” She said that indecorous dress commenced with the transparent yoke, and had now gone to the teet. (Daughter.) It was dreadful to see in trams and trains women who had lost all sense of decency and modesty, and to hear the comments passed about them. It surprised her the Government had uot taken some action. If the unfortunate class of women in Melbourne wore such costumes the police would arrest them. In some parts of America policemen carried a foot rule to measure split skirts. (Laughter.) If he saw a woman showing 100 much of her leg he would apply the foot rule to see if the skirt exceeded the regulation length. Some of the skirts in Melbourne were split right to the knee. It was degrading to respectable women to see others who did uot wear sufficient clothes to cover the body. A Bourke Street firm had a display of tango underskirts in their windows, and on the previous day she passed the window. More men were viewing the display than there were women. A delegate (emphatically); Dike their cheek. Miss Shiel said a lady who had first come from Paris told her if such a display were made in the French capital the shop would be raided. Miss Hillyard said women should take action to prevent such displays of indecency. They were shocking. Disgraceful sights were to be seen at St. Kilda.

Miss Bowsrs said that she supposed that slit skirts and lownecked dresses were worn by members of the association, but the conference should ask them not to iudulge in such fashions. The motion was unanimously agreed to, one delegate remarking that at any rate all the representatives to the conference were decorously dressed.

“ Dear Jack, I am getting out. You know what that means. I feel both mentally and physically u table to cope with a new scheme of life at 54. After all my previous worries and griefs, this strike affair has finished me. . . . Goodbye. old man. You have been a g'-cd friend. It will be a long sleep now. Yours as ever, Alfred J. Stevens." The above is an e xtract from a note which Alfred J. Stevens, sailor, aged 54 years, wrote to a friend on a letter-card just before taking poison at his house at Austin Street Wellington recently. The note was written in ink, in a hand and style that oisclosed a high degree of education and steadiness, that showed not the slightest trace of mental perturbation. At the inquest the evidence showed that deceased had been out of work for some time, and had spoken of suicide. The Coroner returned a verdict of "Death from poison taken while of unsound mind.