Untitled

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15768, 8 December 1916, Page 11

The Sabbath-like calm which usually prevails during the proceedings of the Melbourne Board of Health was rudely disturbed (says the Melbourne "Age") last week, when Mr F. G. Wood rose and launched a motion to the effect that the Board should express its appreciation of the present style of short skirt worn by women, as being conducive to sanitation and a preventive to the spread of disease germs. Flourishing; in one hand a copy of an illustrated weekly journal, and with the other beating the air to add emphasis to his words, Mr "Wood entertained members with a dissertation on the merits and demerits of certain fashions in skirts. He drew a harrowing picture of the young wife and mother, after "sweeping the pavement on the Block" with the fringe of her wliilom long skirt during the afternoon, sitting by the fireside in the evening disseminating the germs amongst her progeny playing about her feet. He commended the "society ladies" of Melbourne for their common sense in adopting this new and sanitary tvpe of skirt, and fervently expressed a hope that the present style would be permanently adopted as the "Australian sanitary walking skirt." Members of the Board were less sanguine as to their capacity to dictate the sartorial fashions, and the chairman (Dr. E. Robertson) ventured the opinion that were such a resolution carried "the women would go into long skirts to-morrow out of pure contrariness!" Cr. Baragwanath's opinion was that there should be a regulation length for skirts. He had seen some pretty short! The motion lapsed for want of a seconder, Mr Wood expressing the hope that some day members of the Board would reach "the dizzy heights from which he spoke."