HATLESS MOURNSRS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3492, 30 October 1926, Page 13

HATLESS MOURNSRS

A SUGGESTED REFORM. COLD DAYS AT FUNERALS, SYDNEY, Oct. 14. One of the most courageous of Sydney’s medical men. Dr. A. vVatson Munro, especially in his fearless fight for the improvement of the status of nurses and for the better protection of mothers is the pioneer of what promises to bo another very sensible reform. Ho has been emphasising the danger of persons contracting pneumonia or other diseases while standing bareheaded at funeral services when the bodily resistance Is often lowered by grief. On a cold day and in some of Sydney’s wind-swept cemeteries this danger is not an unreal one. The Council of Churches, with whom Dr. Watson Munro has been in touch .agrees that it would be wise for all ministers officiating at funerals to ask mourners to uncover their heads only for the actual committal of the body to the ground.

Dr. Watson Munro, it is felt by not a few, ought to go a stop farther and urge the abolition of the practice oi men uncovering their heads in Sydney lifts in the presence of women. It is a form of chivalry which is considered to be not only unwise, especially for those who are bald or are inclined to be so, but which is Gilbertiau in some respects, for is is not uncommon to see a man take his hat oft in a lift, in the of ladies, but continue to smoke. Not a few men in Sydney take their hats off in the lifts simply because''tho other follow does it. Others .rather than risk a cold in the head, especially when they are not generously dowered with hair, courageously leave their hats on.