PROBLEM IN MODESTY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 33, 9 February 1939, Page 3

PROBLEM IN MODESTY

SCOTTISH REGIMENT’S UNDERWEAR PANTIES UNDERNEATH KILTS? [ Per Pi ess Association. J CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 8. The formation of a Scottish regiment in New Zealand has confronted the High Command with a delicate problem in modesty. Certain officers are most distressed to learn that no underclothes are worn beneath the kilt. This appears to be gravely immodest; one of the major military problems of the moment is whether the New Zealand Highlanders can be allowed to go abroad in kilt alone, or whether New Zealand standards of modesty demand that they wear panties or scanties underneath. In plain fact, underclothes beneath the kilt are as grave a sartorial offence as a make-up tie in Bond Street. A veteran of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders recalls the day, during the Great War, when the regiment received its first draft of recruits. Some of the recruits were modest even to the extent of spending money on their modesty—bought little silk panties of the regimental tartan to wear under their kißs. But on Saturday morning the colonel saw these effeminate articles of attire hanging on the lines. He nearly had a fit. The lines were stripped by a fatigue party, and the offending underwear was fed into the cookhouse stoves. The orders of the day, on the morrow, contained a terse instruction to the guard, and, thereafter, when a man was leaving camp on leave, his kilt was lifted by the sergeant of the guard to make sure that he was not wearing any effeminate underclothing. Traditions of modesty are to-day, in military circles, being weighed against the traditions of the Highlands. If the prudish Sassenach wins, there will be a Highland regiment of sorts, but it will be a joke against all true Scots; if Highland tradition wins, the major will be all of a blush.