THIRTY YEARS AGO

Evening Star, Issue 19616, 23 July 1927, Page 21

THIRTY YEARS AGO

CHANGE IN WOMEN’S LIVES. Thirty years ago women did not smoke. At least Jadies did not smoke. The only women who smoked were ancient hags in the slums of industrial towns, and they smoked short clay pipes (writes Arnold Bennett, in ‘ Good Housekeeping’). Ancient hags no longer smoke. To earn her own living was a daring adventure for a girl, and many parents forbade it. Skirts trailed in tho dust and mud of pavements. Three guineas was a monstrous price for a hat and 20gs lor a frock, iieaily imitative imitation, furs had scarcely been invented. Stockings were cheap. Scent was cheap. Women never used unprintable oaths. Hansoms were a barely respectable mode of conveyance for , a lone lady. Bicycling for ladies bad only recently become respectable. The fashionable craze for ridng round and round Battersea Park on a bicycle was but just beginning to fade. Women had no general desire for the vote, and the handful of creatures who' talked about' getting the vote were regarded as being no better, but worse, than they should be. Doubtful characters! Any woman, indeed, who meddled with any matter connected with the improvement of the status of women, had to struggle with the opposition of 99 per cent, of the male sex and 98 per cent, of the female sex. Tho notion of a woman M.P. would have been considered as preposterous and unthinkable as the notion of flying. Women’s clubs were extremely few, and even, worse managed than they are to-day. Girls, even in pairs, did not dash off unprotected to restaurants for a change. They ate at home, and if they ate abroad it was at a tea shop. There were less than 100,000 tea shops in London. People, when they did eat in restaurants, found it' possible to swallow the food without tho help of a band of music or a variety show. Nobody danced except at balls or “ hops,” as they were called. (And rightly called, because then dancing was hopping, and a dancer who kept his feet continuously on the floor would have been held to bo neurasthenic or totally demented.)