WOMEN AND DRESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2184, 2 October 1920, Page 4

WOMEN AND DRESS.

PRESENT DAY IMMODESTY. “SHOCKING AND REPULSIVE.” American woman have, in recent months, been made the target of several attacks by social philosophers, novelists, and others, but never -before have I hey had to answer charges quite so startling as those preferred by Dr. Ilibben, bead of the Princetown University. Briefly, Dr. Hiblien lays at the door of American womanhood the responsibility fur all the grave unrest with which the country is now afflicted. His reason is that as staled in his address, American women have lost their “aura of mystery,” with the result that American men have lost their old-time reverence for them. This, says Dr. Hibben, is fundamental, and accounts for most or the ills that America is suffering from, in the course of the past yeffr Dr. Hibben’s duties have caused him to travel more than 11,000 miles in all parts of the United States, In describing what he saw he refuses to mince words. “It was the same in the west as in the east, in the north as in llie south,” he says. “Everywhere there exists the same barbaric licence in women’s dress, familiarity in manners, and barbaric licence in' 1 dancing. The modern dance is an orgy, and women expose themselves shamelessly, and invite a familiarity which is shocking and repulsive.” Dr. Hiblien gives some details concerning dances he saw. He was asked: “Whose fault is, it—men’s or

women’s?” Unhesitatingly he answered: “Women’s. They half undress themselves and fling themselves at men's heads.”— I ‘‘What do you think causes this?” he was next asked. In surprising tones the great educationist, replied: “It is not the young women, the girls, it is the mothers, the older generation.” The question of women’s dress is also causing some little stir in Cardiff, as the result of some remarks made by Father Purlin, of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Cardiff, during high mass. “I hope,” he said, “that the lady members of this parish will not attempt to attire themselves in some of the present-day fashions.” If a woman immodestly dressed approached the altar for Holy Communion, he continued, he would refuse to allow her to partake of the sacrament, passing her by as if she did not exist. Father Purlin stated, in an interview, that his remark was only intended as a warning, as lie had not seen any woman enter his church with bare shoulders or in any oilier immodest way. Ho added; “But go where you will in the street you see women of all classes, including those of the working classes, dressed in ‘fast’ styles.” He frequently saw girls going to work in the mills and warehouses wearing silk stockings and the like. So far as city girls were concerned, he blamed the music-halls of the last half-century, and (he tendency to immodest dress in mining towns and villages he attributed to the horrible social conditions which prevailed.