HUTS OFF IN LIFTS?

Matamata Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1742, 25 June 1936, Page 3

HUTS OFF IN LIFTS?

AMERICAN JOURNAL’S OPINION; “What is it that makes an elevator sacred ? One may walk along the corridor of a public building, chatting with a woman and wearing the chapeau. But as soon as one steps into the elevator with the same woman, off comes his hat. • Right here a venture may rashly be made into the zone between chivalry and practical things. In a crowded elevator, largely occupied by women, it is just supererogation in a man. But you can’t get your hat down in the space that usually remains. Sure, you can hold the hat up where all may see it, even if that does appear to be display of the hat, or assertion that you deem yourself a gentleman, justifiable or not. But the procedure entails elbow play, wherever the hat is held, and that, too, may cause embarrassment. Besides, what outward reward is given for such deference? Hat doffing in this instance is a vestigal custom. But try to make a feminine observer see that point, and see where you get. If we are preserving other appurtenances and manners of the past in an age of-crowded elevators, we just can’t discard this one—hot yet awhile.—“ Minneapolis Journal.”