SHORT SKIRTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 46, 23 January 1926, Page 7

SHORT SKIRTS.

WOMEN BOWLERS INSIST. GREATER FREEDOM. MELBOURNE, Jan. 14. Women bowlers who have been accused of immodesty in dress intend to put up a fight for their short skirts. Thero are many more women bowlers in favour of Fashion’s latest decree than was at first thought, and several clubs have already called indignation meetings for this evening. Many of tho indignant women declare that tho short skirt is more in keeping with the game. It allows them a freedom that tho long skirt precludes. But that is not all. Tho association has ordered that tho censorship committee shall seo that all competitors wear either white or cream costumes, with the dub colours showing prominently. Neither white nor cream, say the insurgents, is suitable for all women, and they declare they reserve to themselves the right to wear tho colours that best suit their individual tastes. Airs Airey, who is 81, claims to he Australia’s oldest active woman bowler. Sho never misses an afternoon on the green, and she thinks the association should not interfere in the matter of dress. “My experience shows,” sho said to-day, “that women know how to conduct themselves in every sphere of sport, and I think ’t is absurd to try to tell tho youngsters what they should wear so long as they conform to standards of decency. Wouldn’t it be fun,” sho added, “to wear crinolines on the green?” “Ridiculous nonsense” is tho opinion of the vice-president of the Victorian Bowling Club (Mr P. Ford) on the censorship. “Why can’t women appear on bowling greens in dresses as short as those they wear in Collins street?” he asks. Airs Harper, the famous tennis player, described it as “quite ridiculous.” “What would their association do if their players took to wearing the short skirts which wo tennis players find so sensible?” she asked. Airs O’Hara Wood agreed. “The shorter the better—that’s my opinion,” sho said. “I seo nothing indecent in our tennis dress. In fact, I think short skirts and bloomers are better than a skirt and petticoats.”