The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-04-03
CONTENT WITH THEIR KINKS.
Hat Removes OId-Time
PrcIudfcc of COIOred Women.

Hat Ordinance Removes OId-Time
Prejudice of COIored Women.
The colored society belle has placed
the fiat of her disapproval on straight
hair and wigs. The hat" ordinance is,
in the main, responsible for this revul-
sion of feeling against a fashion of
long standing. Wigs, however, have
not stood in, high favor for some time
in select colored society circles. Col
ored society women are no different
from their type the world over, and
the frequency with which wigs are seen
in the ~"levee' district made it impos-
siple for that style of headwear to re-
main in vogue among colored women of
social distinction.
Straight hair did not fall under the
ban of popular disfavor until after the
hat" ordinance went into effect. The
fairer-skinned colored women have al
ways been noted as the possessors of
heads of beautiful straight hair. The
duskier-hued are not SO well off in this
worlds hair goods. But where nature
failed them they sought the aid, with
varying success, of MISUNDERSTANDING
devices of all sorts and wigs. The soft,
fluffy hair that is always bent on kink=
ing at the most i%nOpportune moments
could not, under these circumstances,
be expected to hold its own, and
it didn't. This is the reason why the
popular mind, which had always been
taught that kinks and dusky hues went
hand in hand, stood bewildered when
the straightforward colored society
woman swept by it with Il conscious toss
of her oft-times shapely head.
Then it was that the learned profess
sors of anthropology began to descant
upon the race changes that were taking
place in America and upon what would
be the ultimate effect on the Anglo
Saxon If the matter was not looked into
at opee and steps taken TO avert what
was certain to develop into a great dis
aster. In the meantime h innocent
cause of all this hubbub went on her
way in evident enjoyment of the pos
session of her neW-found glory. The
patentees of MISUNDERSTANDING devices,
oils. pomadcs and soaps found much
difficulty in supplying the demand for
their goods. Where the subjects heads
were particularly stubborn TO treat
lnent q place was made for the use of
wigs.
But no sooner did straight hair be
come q common commodity of head
wear than the white society BELLE he
gan to see Il beauty in the Katlir fash
ion of wearing hair strikingly attract
I've. Fluffy hair and strapge-lunking or
naments became the ''rnGe" and excited
the admiration and the wonder of all
who had the fortune tn see them. At
first his did not cut any large blocks
of ice in the fashion calculations Of
her dusky prototype, who continued to
straighten her kinks in the blind belief
that she was very much in it. Then
cietY women who went to see Mrs. Car
ter keep the curfow from ringing be
came painfully conscious of the fact
that straight hair was no longer the
only pebble that told fairy tales TO the
sad sea waves. Woman's weakness to
he in the swim took II lirmer hold of
her, and with her soul fun to overflow
ing she resolved to go back to kinks and
fU(fs. Tears came TO her eyes, she gazed
long and lovingly at the devices, oils,
pomades and soaps, but Dame Fashion
had decreed that they must go. and they
were put up on the highest closet shelf
the bandannas and einghams of
her grandmother. And thus ends an
other chapter in the history of nations.
Chronicle