DANGEROUS HATPINS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15056, 27 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

DANGEROUS HATPINS.

CHICAGO'S BEAUTY SQUAD.

Chicago policemen are too bashful to enforce the regulation which provides that women's hatpins shall not protrude more than half an inch from their hats, and the chief of police there states that he proposes to avail himself of the offers of assistance of young women who are firm believers in the hatpin regulation and who have volunteered their services.

"I will call the new force," said the chief, "the beauty squad, and I will have enough help to suppress all illegal hatpins." The chief's announcement is opportune, because cases of the partial destruction of eyesight by women's ornamental weapons are reported. Chicago's "beauty squad" is without parallel, but New York and several other bit; cities have enrolled volunteers called "The Sanitary Squad," whose mission is to supress spitting on tramcars, trains, stations, and other public places. The result has been most encouraging. Spitting is still much more prevalent here than in Europe, but the campaign headed by the municipal authorities lately carried the war into the ranks of the expectorants, with the result that spitting to-day in public places is 50 per cent. less popular than was the case five years ago. The authorities, stimulated by the report of the Tuberculosis Commission, have issued placards broadcast, expounding the dangers of the practice, and in all public conveyances appear warnings printed in English, German, Italian, and Yiddish) declaring that offenders found guilty are liable to a fine of £100, or a year in prison, or both*