SKIRTING THE QUESTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 2, 4 January 1910, Page 6

SKIRTING THE QUESTION.

MARTYRDOM OF THE COSTUME

The ladies' papers, always up to date, hay been devising a feminine costume for an aeroplane. It is> something .with a suggestion of trousers (writes Clarence Rook in the Daily Chronicle) and a head covering ti at lacks the pin-prick of the currentfeminine hats. Fully dressed for an teroplane excursion, our fashionable woman'would, I take it (she has just been photographed) distantly resemble the Eskimo ladies, who can scarcely bo distinguished from Dr. Cook's excursionists to the North Pole. She would wear trousers, and a sort of gaberdine; but—and now one comes to the eternal quarrel between the dress of man and woman, which must have started in the Garden of Eden—it will not be a comfortable kit.

It will not contain a pocket, for instance. For we have lately had a Woman's Exhibition at Olympia, and all manner of women's products were shown, from babies to wrist-bags. The finest wrist-bags came from Greenland. Wrist-bags made from leather, and sewn with colored strips, and designed to open four-square at a touch ' upon the metal fastening. Up in I Greenland on a frosty day it must be I a slippery and lengthy walk for the woman who wants to shop. You would think she would haye achieved the ' capacious pocket with the trousers, j But no. She carries the wrist-bag, ! makes the finest wrist-bags, and car- \ ries her pemmican as her Bond Street ! sister carries her coin—in a wrist- i bag. , DRESS AND, DISCOMFORT. You would conclude that the women of the world have achieved the last ] word in the matter of dress, that the i initial split in the Garden of Eden had j . led to the horrid contest between the ; man who wears a silk hat and the j woman who wears what—by courtesy, —we call a picture hat. But, speaking as a man, I must congratulate women on their acceptance of discomfort. For centuries they have been dressed by men, and I should imagine that when Adam and Eve first discussed the question of dress, Adam foresaw that it was necessary to train his wife to a reasonable amount of; ; discomfort. ■Nowadays we see the re;suit of this,.and;one, bows ■in respect to the . woman who, following the fashion; must be uncomfortable from hat to toe. The other day, by the way, a lady was rescued by a man. Her four-inch heel had caught in the interstices of a seaside landing stage. But you will note that the admirable temper, the delightful competency, the splendid achievements of women must have been due to her careful training in discomfort—which can hardly be beaten—except in China—■ by anything but the four-inch heel. And looking at women, the daughters of Eve, in an omnibus, for example, I reflect upon the subtlety of man who has got round finance, trained iiis womankind to buy the most uncomfortable things at bargain sales. From the seat of the male, I cannot understand how a woman — even an ill-dressed woman—can keep her temper. To begin with, in the omnibus or train or tram she cannot lean back, for her hat picks up obstructions. And, without entering into the more intimate details, I should think that from hat to toe the average woman's dress must be extremely uncomfortable. She has not— such- : 4a, subtlety of man—the command pf t finance, and her pocket is always arranged on the Greenland method. Slung over the arm, with the watch, the umbrella, various other commodities---the handkerchief, the powder-puff, and the purse. All these things, together with library books and a packet of cigarettes, a woman will carry. Then you wonder that women lose the wrist-bag in which they carry a few odd thousands pounds of jewellery. And the final inconvenience which men have imposed upon women is the skirt. The skirt is the final test that man has imposed upon woman, and as she can do her work therein she has my sympathy —my admiration. The1 Roman man wore a toga, you may remember, and cast it about himself' as he swaggered in the Roman streets. But when he went off to annex the world he shed his toga, and emerged in breeches, with two legs, free and unabashed. The men of the world have\ shirked the discomfort of clothes > '.When! a: little extra labor has been put upon them; arid even the Highlanders, the only petticoated men in the United Kingdom, wear their skirts very short and very seldom. They prefer trews. THE SWEET TEMPER. But the woman is trained to discomfort, and her usual good temper is evidently due to the subtlety of the man who for generations has expressed- a delight in her preposterous clothing. She doesn't know what it is to suffer from tight shoes or a hat that^wili not fit into a cab or a waistband that will protest against a dinner or alife at large with the Greenland device of a wrist-bag. > She is so used to discomfort (imposed upon her by the sons of Adam) that she can keep her temper in circumstances that would drive the man to fury. _ And the man in the omnibus contemplates the woman opposite who cannot lean back because of her hat cannot find her fare, since she has torgotten her wrist-bag, and must dig into mysterious regions for a penny Ihe woman in the skirt. Thewoman with all manner of puffs and buzzes or frippery that may catch the chance obstruction—and the skirt. But she does it. Does.it! And as I sit over against her and reflect, I respect her tor her triumph over discomfort. We are watching each other nowadays, men and women; and'there are competitions between us—such as beauty shows. How would we like to appear to the others? What are the women that men want, and what are the men that women want ? The final question is the skirt, I think. Personally 1 would not like to wear a skirt, though 1 admire them when worn on the proper figure, and wonder at the agility of the people who wear them. ~ Uut in the omnibus the competition attracts me. Do men like skirts ? tnVflTl hk6 Si lk hats? Coupons !to be filled up and returned. And the man leans quietly back in the omnibus crosses his legs and f eels grateful that the woman, opposite has been taught to sit up. straight, keen her % feet; nnd&r' her skirt," and temper;sweet.