MRS GRUNDY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 29 December 1924, Page 8

MRS GRUNDY

AN INTERNATIONAL FIGURE (By John Blunt, in the Daily Mail) It appears that fi bill is to be introduced into the Polish Parliament to pro I liibit women from wearing low-necked, 1 short sleeved dresses j 1 can imagine nothing more likely to : make women want to wear such dresses. Old-womanish legislation, which goes contrary to ordinary common sense, is | always liable td promote the “evil” it j seeks to suppress. • REASON AND LAW Laws are .generally respected because they generally represent the opinions of reasonable people. If a Government starts making laws which go counter to public opinion it cannot be surprised if public opinion is inclined to flout these laws. For, after all, the object of laws is to benefit, not to harass, -the community. It is very easy, if you pooseSS Hint type of mind, to find cause for reproof in the most harmless things. And many people, I am afraid, have that type, of mind, for Mrs Grundy is far from being dead. Indeed, she is evidently becoming an international as well as a national figure. To the lady who rebuked Dr. Johnson for putting “naughty words” into his dictionary, the sage cuttingly retorted that she had evidently been searching for such words. And his reply holds good to-day with regard to a lot of people who are always looking for evil where no evil is meant. INTERFERENCE It is a great pity that there arc so many busybodies in the world. Why interfere with other people’s harmless pleasures just because you happen to disagree with them? And who gave anybody an inherent right to act as a mentor of the public taste in dress? Do not all these kill-joys realise that public opinion is quite strong enough to prevent anything really objectionable .from becoming fashionable? If 1 shudder because I see women with bare arms it is a sign not of public depravity but of my own folly. ’ Half the troubles in the world arise from an evil imagination. If people were left more td their own devices the world would not suffer, because mailkind as a whole is sane and sensible. i BRAVADO ENCOURAGED 1 ’■ >] But if we are constantly being told with regard to trivial things what we can do and what we can’t do, it is only natural that opposition is aroused, and that people are inclined to go further, out of bravado, than they would go of their own free will. This is simply human nature. I do not know what the women of Poland will do if short sleeves and low dresses are officially banned, but I strongly suspect that they wiy kill any such law by ignoring it in such large numbers that the authorities will he powerless. _ ,