DANGERS OF DRESS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 46, 13 February 1908, Page 4

DANGERS OF DRESS

War against the hat-pin point is now Mug waged in Moscow. It was provoked by two accidents which recently occurred iu consequence of the abuse of this formidable article of U»ilet. and now I writes a St. Petersburg correspondent to the '• Daily Mail ") the habit of carrying such dangerous weapons unsheathed is loudly resented by the general public. A few days ago, after a concert directed by X'ikisch, the audience was, as usual, making a hurried exit. The robing-room was thronged, the enthusiastic vularb's of music, male and female, elbowed eu"h other fortissimo. One of the ladies putting on her hat inadvertently ran a superlluous length of pin into her neigh hour's eye. A scream, a ((digestion >f the crowd, a short, sharp war ot tongues and the incident was over.

A lew days previously a similar accident had occurred iu a tramcar. A lady haying dropped her reticule, a studenl quickly and courteously siooped down io secure it for her. As always bailpens in such ca-es, the lady also stooped down. The youth, unaware of tlrs. I raised his head swiftly, and. her hat-pin stretching out- an inch or two beyond the brim, struck out his eye. For a lime the other eye also was in danger. Now the editor of a Moscow newspaper makes a strong appeal to the good sense of the fair sex to discontinue such a dangerous and unnecessary practice. . In St. Petersburg University circles, also, much irritation and discussion have been aroused bv undue extravagance in ladies' toilet, it is only quite recently thai women have been admitted within the precincts of the temple of wisdom, and only as "outside auditors," not as students. -Most of the privileged ladies, it appears, devote themselves by jirelerence to a study of the aesthetics A dress, and appear in the lecture-rooms in picture-hats of remarkable shapes, in dainty gowns that rivet attention as they 'sweep the dusty corridors, and in dresses that are poems in silk or crene de chine. And as for the ribbons, the brooches, the latest things in belts, and the artistic designs of buckles, the unfortunate male student, particularly of the bachelor persuasion, is literally spe'lbouml. He is not in a lit frame of mind to pore over musty old volumes: he resembles Hercules in the power of Omphale. Things aoslhetical have thus encroached upon matters scientific to such a- degree that a remedy of some kind must be speedily" found and applied. A group of really studious ladies, of whom there is a "fair" contingent desirous of having the matter settled quietly, have put up n notice on the black-boards beseeching their aesthetic sisters to reserve the man-killing gowns and the heartstealing hats for other places than the university, and assuring them that by turning the lecture-halls into fashionable at-homes they are damaging the cause of Russian women generally.