The herald., 1895-07-07

after receiving due notification will bt
fined $25, as also will be the managers o.
| theatres who fail to see that the law /!
enforced
This man seems to have hit upon rea
remedy for crying public evil. Every
person who has had the annoyance an6
painful experience of catching occasiona
| glimpses of an interesting play from be-
hind a voluminous and obscuring hat, or
the head of a restless woman, will de-
| clare Jones benefactor of the race. Mr.
Jones, in speaking of his bill, says: This
| bill will fill an aching void in the heart OF
every lover of the play. 1t will save
countless souls that go down to perdition
annually, and will snatch from the burn
| irg many a victim to the temptation to
| profanity caused by womans hat. 1t
rises like a cloud and obscures from far
off the sacred opera from the Y. NJ C. A.
young man. 1t is a great moral measure,
too," observes Jones, "and might well be
| so entitled. Further than that, it is a
| temperance bill-not a high license, but a
| tentative, measure. Many a young man
| has become a victim of the demon of
| drink by rushing out between the acts
| frantically, while suffering from tenn
| porary alteration, and taking his first
| fatal drink as solace to the anger and
discontinue caused him by the big hat
| nuisance.
You ask why I introduced the bill?
l will tell you; that is, l will narrate the
incident which was the hair which broke
the camels back. The other night in
Chicago I went to the Park Thea-I mean
the Auditorium-and 1 had a seat near
81. A dude from Blue Island, with his
girl, sat in front of me, and she had on
hat seven feet in circumference and two
feet in diameter. That ended all hope of
seeing anything, but l expected to hear
little of the thing until a dilettante sit
ting behind me began to tell his girl all
about the play. He kept about two min
utes in advance of the actors all the time;
and when my friend and complained
that we had already paid for that play
and did not want to get 1t free, he asked
the usher to put us out.
What is going to come of the big hat
agitation: If the men think they are
going to suppress the Gainsborough, they
are mistaken.
Legislation will hardly correct the evil,
l fancy. A theatre manager could not
hire an usher to go about a theatre in
forming mers wives or sweethearts that
they must take off their hats There is no
man but who would resent the intrusion;
he could not, much as he might feel that
his companion was doing an injustice to
everybody back of her, do anything else.
A man will always take a woman's part,
no matter how much in the wrong she
may be.
1t is a well-known fact that men can
not control what their wives wear. If
they could, the big hat nuisance would
not survive a day. l have no patience
with a woman who will go to the theatre
wearing an Eifel Tower hat! 1t is all
right for a woman to wear the hat; but
she should remove it, just like the mer
do he nj VhOuSa
fortnight ago a man in st. Louis at
tempted to wear his hat during a theatri-
cal performance because a woman in
front of him Wore such a large hat that
his view was obstructed. Tie individual
in question was elected from the theatre
and fined in the police court. 1t would
seem then that women have rights not
possessed by the "tyrant man''-another
/ moss grown chestnut. TYrant man, in
deed, when omen make such nuisances
of themselves!
Thousands of men throughout the coun-
try will rise up and call Jones blessed,
and wish him and his measure we'll. 1t
is not altogether an original one, how
ever for the Missouri Legislature is con-
slderng a similar law, and the New York
General Assembly is debating whether or
not restrictions should be put upon
woman's headgear in that state.
I think | could suggest one improvement
in the Jones bill. Instead of having
ushers inform ladies to remove their hats,
why not have the manager, just before
the play begins, let down a drop upon
which should be painted Ladies wearing
big hats will kindly remove them before
the play begins.''
Then the officers could go about ard
make arrests.
A riot would then follow.
LADY BRACEGIRDLE.