SLAPPED THE PREACHER

Shannon News, 31 August 1926, Page 2

SLAPPED THE PREACHER

A BOBBED HAIR GIRL. SAN FRANCISCO, July v 2o. The commonwealth of Kentucky lias upheld the right of a bobbedhaired girl to slap a preacher who has made an utterance from the pulpit/ that no virtuous woman would hob her hair. Governor William J. Fields, of Frankfort, Kentucky, has granted a full and free pardon to Miss Martha Bates, of Whitesburg, a bobbed-hair-ed girl from the mountain section of Kentucky, who slapped Rev., Arlie Brown, Baptist minister, of Milestone Kentucky, for criticising women who bob their hair. The mountain girl took exception to the minister’s- remark made last May and walked up to the pulpit during his sermon and slapped him. Partisans of the girl and the minister waged a verbal war over the justice of the minister’s remarks and the girl’s resentment, and the outcome was a court trial. A circuit court found the girl guilty, and sentenced her to gaol for 40 days. She served 15 days of the term when the Governor intervened and stayed her sentence to investigate the case. The investigation eventually ended, when the Governor let it be known that he was opposed to “pulpit cowardice,” and that he was convinced the minister made the remarks about the bobbed-haired feminity.

The Governor formally termed pulpit. cowardice the worst of all forms of cowardice and believed sweeping remarks' about women's styles inappropriate from men engaged in the ministry. The executive further wondered why, with the whole Bible to teach from, some o{ the cloth wandered into the fields of women's styles and the like, generally speaking.

Following the altercation with Miss Bates, Mr Brown soon left his mountain territory congregation and removed to western Kentucky.