IDEAS OF BEAUTY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 101, 26 October 1934, Page 4

IDEAS OF BEAUTY

GIRLS OF THE BALKANS

ENGLISHMAN'S POLITENESS

Some strange ideas of boauty as held in tho Balkans were described by Mrs. M. M. Hasluek (London) in the anthropology section of the Science Congress. In Greek Macedonia tho beauty's h"ead is shaped like a pear. In Albania nothing was more admired than tho flat effect. A round-facod girl in Albania could not hope to succeed; she would bo known as "melon-face.' 1

In Greek Macedonia, Mrs. Hasluek deelarod, the ideal of beauty was a long head, and when a new-born baby looked like being round-faced its head was tightly bound for weeks to produce an effect, liko a pear. Infantile mortality was appallingly high in Albania, and tho mother strapped her baby on to a board to make its hold on lifo firmer— a clear example of sympathetic magic.

Lord Raglan disagreed, and suggested that it was not a case- of evolution in Albania, but a case- of degeneration from tho cradle to tho board. Ho propounded a counter-theory. Tho cradle was shaped liko a boat, and coffins were shaped liko boats even today. In many parts of-tho world tribal chiefs wore buried in their boats, and tho cradle of today rocked just liko a boat. He suggested that the cradle originally derived from a boat. "TherO is another aspect of the question," added Lord Baglan. "In many parts of tho \Vt>rld cradles are not used at all."

Dr. 0. S. Myers (London) said that in Cyprus what waß considered a really beautiful girl looked like n frog, In a Balkan Stato a girl wns set forth as a great beauty to an English visitor who afterwards described her as having "a face liko a horse, somewhat underhung, tow-coloured hair, and no-colonr'cd eyos." The visitor was asked whether he liked her, and, wishing to bo polite, said, "Well, yos," nnd his host immediately replied, "Wo thought you would. Wo call her 'The Little Englishwoman.' "

Many of the inner districts of London aro loßing their inhabitants. In (h# case ol! Southtvark, the population lias [alien by 22,764 in the last ten years.