FLATFOOT FLAPPERS.

Western Star, 19 March 1920, Page 4

FLATFOOT FLAPPERS.

' REVELATIONS DUE TO SHORT SKIRTS. A dreadful charge k brought by Dr. Walter Kidd', of Cheltenham, against the women of England (states a London paper of recent date). Dr. Kidd in his walks abroad has been observing the feet —and ankles—of the ladies he meets and overtakes. He has noted carefully 2000 examples (making 4000 pedal extremities) in our large towns, and has taken a casual glance at a large number more. For three years he has been engaged upon what he calls “ this miserable subject,” and he now reports that— Many women walk like dachshunds. Some afford hideous instances of splay-foot. Ninety per cent, suffer from . flat foot, incipient or pronounced. Most Englishwomen have deploi'able ankles and feet. ■ The majority display their deformities with charming levity and audacity.

It is only to the eye- of the practised observer that the extent of the sad state of things is revealed, for flatness of foot and incipient failure of the arch still permit one to walk fairly well; but the trouble is that the health of the nation is bound to suffer. Attention to general health and systematic foot and leg drill in the very young are the remedies that Dr Kidd- suggests. Short skirts are the cause of these revelations. By abbreviating their petticoats the ladies have revealed their shortcomings to the eyes of science.

“ Can this bo the reason,” a male member of a London newspaper staff asked a lady fashion expert, “why there is, according to the papers, a distinct tendency to make the skirt longer. Is the flat-foot flapper in n funk. Are the dachshund duchesses ashamed of themselves?”

“No,” said the expert; “you misunderstand the position. There was a time when flat-foot was distingue, and splay-foot the thing. Nowadays every chit of a girl has both at once. So really smart women are beginning to cover* theirs up. Fashion is nothing if it is not exclusive.