AN ITALIAN UKASE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 16 July 1929, Page 2

AN ITALIAN UKASE

LONG SKIRTS—OR NO FRIENDS Spare a moment's pity, you emancipated, short-skirted, women, of the South, for your sisters in Italy, where woe betide the maiden who would expose too much silk-clad leg or a dimpled knee (says a London paper). Sight- of a dainty garter or the tiniest, glimpse of the most respectable lingerie is to bring the heavy wrath of Italy's indignant manhood on the fair offender. A group of young men in Venice has decided to ostracise all women who show their knees. Youths of Genoa have declared bitter war on short, skirts. Young men of the Chioggia have taken, a solemn oath to cut all their women -friends whose clothes offend their susceptibilities. The Chioggian youths will not only snub their immodest friends. They are pledged not to enter cafes or bars or restaurants where the waitresses are indecently dressed. Girls whose knees can be seen are seized and a point on the stockings to which their skirts ought to extend is marked in heavy crayon.