MODESTY IN NUDITY.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 230, 29 March 1928, Page 2

MODESTY IN NUDITY.

ANOTHER AMERICAN CRUDITY. In “ The Shallow Show ” Mr. J. H. Curie declares that modesty varies inversely as the square of the calico worn. In less technical language, this means that the less clothes the more modesty.- He had seen among a certain tribe the women all naked but quite chaste and much more modest than European women averagely are. A similar American observation is thus amusingly commented upon by “ The Chiel ” in the Ngaruawahia Advocate: — “ I read lately an assertion, made in all seriousness by an American authority, that within a dozen years women will discard clothing altogether and will walk our streets naked hut unashamed. He hails the prospect with enthusiasm as a powerful aid to real modesty, better health and better morals. The psychologists will agree with him, for they hold that no effect is produced on the mind by objects always before the eyes. The ecclesiastics will raise Cain over the innovation ; yet they tell us that Adam and Eve were sinless before they took to vestments. The corollary should be : discard vestments, and become sinless again. Let us have a quatrain:—

I hope that I express my thought Without a tinge of crudity. True Modesty is only caught By wearing naught but nudity. “ Our American prophet has, however, missed the essential point. Clothes were originally adopted, not for concealment or for protection, but for ornament. Woman is as vain now as she was in the fish bone era. Husbands needn’t chuckle over a coming reduction in bills. The people | who will supply our nude women with | bangles, armlets, leglets and all j manner of adornments will require much satisfying. For poor hubby it will probably be ‘ out of the frying' <>an into the fire.’

“ The prophecy is, however, a very foolish one. It is hard enough to foretell what women will wear in 12 months, never mind 12 years. In -2 years woman may be so buried in clothes that you would have to dig her out with a spade.’,’