St. Paul daily globe., 1895-09-22
BAN THE BL00WER
HOW PARIS MIGHT PUT AN END
TO FASHIONS OF WOMEN
CYCLISTS.
FUNNY MISUNDERSTANDING
GROWING OUT OF A REPORT
THAT GENDARMES WOULD
STOP MASQUERADING.
AN INGENIOUS DESPOTIsM
FUNNY MISUNDERSTANDING
AN INGENIOUS DESPOTISM
Which Would Be Sure to Bear
ResuIts-An Esthetic War
fare.

A celebrated operetta talks of peo-
pie who say that they are Spaniards,
and who are not Spaniards at all. III
the public journals are to be believed
the bicycle, like Spain. has its i'm
posters. There are on our boule-
wards, particularly the Saint-Mich-
aeI boulevard, persons who wear
costumes of cyclists and who are not
cyclists They are thus disguised
lin order to attract attention"
According to the same papers the
police prefect, moved by this guilty
masquerading, has proposed an Or
dinance by which every woman
clothed in what the American women
of the Chicago congress called "a
divided skirt and what we call
trousers, shall have to prove on a
policeman's demand that her uni
form is that of an authentic blcyllSt,
and not merely q new fashion. Other
journals assert that this information
is erroneous, and that the police pre-
feet has never considered a project
to regulate clothing of ''cycle wom-
en-" These journals demonstrate
that such a project would have been
ridiculous, odious, and, finally, i'm
practicable. They demonstrate this
with a great abundance of solid argu-
ments. 1t cannot be denied that it
would be extremely difficult to dis
Germ the true from the false bicyclist;
that the policeman charged with en-
forcing the law would need rare
faculties of tact, sagacity and d1V1na-
ton: that. doubtless, deplOrable er-
rors would be committed; that the
French citizens have already too lit
tie of personal independence; that
they are annoyed in most of their
actions by innumerable orders, and
that it is superfiuous to make them
still more lavish. All this is true. If
one thinks only of liberty and the
immortal principles of 1889 blcycllsts
have the improscribable right to
wear trousers.
But if one thinks Of esthetlcs?
Let us dream. Imagine that we are
living under a government In love
with beauty, or at least inimical to
ugliness-a government whose first
care is to retain for modern things
a little harmony and a little style,
and which proclaims, like the an
cient Greeks, that the most relig-
ious act is to exhibit pure forms. >"
That the government would be
weary of the forms, more and more
hideous, that the French people eX-
hibit- delightfully."- to the light of day.
1t would be weary of the puffed
sleeves that overthrow the proper
tions of the feminine body, destroy
the lines, and appear to be made to
conceal deformities. 1t would be
weary of the bicycle. Perhaps its
use would be tolerated for men, since
it serves country physicians, and
since in our utilitarian age man is
not expected to be handsome. But
the government inimical to ugliness
would try to save what remains of
beauty in the world, and prohibit
women from using that sinister ma
chine which makes geometrical an
giles of their supple and sinuous
curves, breaks their backs, lifts their
shoulders, and, finally, by the odious
alternate motion of their ascending
knees, makes them resemble remold-
ers, dogs in a turnspit, or monkeys
climbing, or the zinc automatons
which came to us from America last
winter.
The state inimical to ugliness
would rid Paris of these criminally
hideous things, and work in it's own
way for street decency. But it would
fear to provoke a riot, or, perhaps
revolution, if its prohibition of the
bicycle was made too suddenly. A
subtle prefect of police would inter
vene. He would promulgate noise
lessly the ordinance mentioned a
moment ago. People here are sc
accustomed to being vexed by the
government that persons subjected
to this regulation would not protest
loudly. But they would be annoyed
inquests Of police agents; affidavits
errors, constant watching, would be.
come torments to them Little By
little most of them would abandon
trousers in favor of the skirt. They
would not stop there; for the sxir
is embarrassing and heavy, and ex
acts special machines, less. sure ant
less strong than the others. MANY
persons would renounce bicyclins
entirely. There would remain onl,
few obstinate persons, and will
them it might be possible to be sue
cessful by supplementary regula
tions which, for example, would per
nit bicycling only to women whose
LONELINESS was dazzling. Thus, in
genious despotism might efface tn
most execrable assault that mel
ever committed against esthetics
What a pity that in this dream ev
erything is illusion, from the polio
prefect project to the thought of
government founded on love O
beauty
A FINE COMPLEXION.