WOMEN BARRISTERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23829, 8 June 1939, Page 19

WOMEN BARRISTERS

" KISS CURL” PERMITTED When women were first admitted to the Bar there was a strong feeling that, instead of wigs, the women barristers should Wear a black velvet beret in court. This idea, however, was rejected for the curious reason that neither clients nor the public would believe the wearers to be genuine lawyers (says a writer in an English paper). Next came the business of having wigs fitted. The legal counterpart of the late Mr Willy Clarkson arrived and set about the business of fitting the first lot of women who had been “called.” With a good will, his customers began adjusting their curled horsehair gear, pulling the wigs this way and that before a mirror to discover which were the most comfortable and/or becoming angles for each individual. Presently, the wigmaker, who was not accustomed to such behaviour. cried out reproachfully: “Ladles, ladies, you are going into a

court of law. not on to the stage of * theatre! ” Ultimately, and apparently on his ■ own initiative, he decided that a concession must be made to feminine wearers in the shape of an extra small curl on the cheek at either side—in other words, a “kiss curl." And so it came about that the wig of every woman barrister is now distinguished from her brother’s by the presence, of these little side curls. Otherwise there is no difference at all. One woman at least may be pardoned for thinking that the black velvet beret would have been more suitable for women counsel, especially for those with luxuriant tresses which, could so much more easily have beep tucked, , away beneath a full cap than beneath' the skull-fitting, canvas of the male, wig, But. once decided, such ordinal ances of the law are not lightly and the formal wigs, en- ~ livened by a couple of extra curls, are likely to continue indefinitely.