THE TANGO AND THE SPLIT SKIRT.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14917, 16 March 1914, Page 8

THE TANGO AND THE SPLIT SKIRT.

AUSTRALIAN COMMENT

(FROM OCB QVrS COBBESPOSTDEXT.) SYDNEY, March 9. Sydney has tho tango craze badly— madly. It is danced at. Revue, there aro tango teas at another theatre Tuesdays and Fridays, and all tho dancing masters and mistresses are teaching it to the million. When lady meets lady the first question is, "Do you tango?" Teachers of dancing never reaped such a harvest as they are reaping now. And while half the world is tangoing, the other half ; e expressing its shocked amazement at the depraritv which has overtaken us. The tango and the split skirt—the.se> aro tho things which Mother Gmndy is just now concerned about. They arcthe subject o ( . tiermons and public resolutions. At the annual conference of the Australasian Women's Association in Melbourne, Miss Shiel, of Fitzroy, moved: •'That all members of this Association refrain from the prevailing fashion of indecorous attire." She said that indecorous dress commenced with the transparent yoke, and now had gone to the feet. * It was dreadful to see in trams and trains women who had lost all >>en.se of decency and modesty. In some parts of America the policemen carried a foot-rule to measure split skirts. (Loud laughter.) If he saw a woman showing too much of her leg ho would apply tho rule to see if the split exceeded the regulation length. Some of tho skirts in Melbourne, she went on to say. were split right to tho knee. It was degrading to respectable women to see others going about without. Ettfficient clothes to cover the body. She mentioned that a Bourke street firm had a. display of tango underskirts in its windows, and as she passed tho window sho saw that there were mor<» men viewing tho display than women. "Like their cheek!" ejaculated one ot tho delegates. Miss Shiel added that a lady from Paris had told her that if such a display were made in a shop in that city the place would bo raid?d. So that Paris really cannot be as bad as it is painted! Somebody remarks that it is a case of what wo are used to, and that custom will make anything decorous. It is certain that a little while ago we were all shocked when mixed surf-bathing was introduced, but now even clergymen defend it.