The record-union., 1897-05-26
AN OLD SUBJECT REVIVED.

The San Francisco Supervisors have
at last passed an "anti-high- -hat-in-t the
theater'' ordinance. Three years ago
such a thing was not thought possible.
At that time the bare suggestion of
such a law in this city brought on
storm of ridicule crowned by feminine
sneers.
We recall that some of the most state
ly and independent, as we'll as some of
the most retiring and sensitive of Sac
ramento women, made bold at that
time to say through the press that any
attempt to coerce the female sex in
this matter was simply ridiculous; that
women could be coaxed but not driven;
that they would wear what they pleased,
and as little or much as pleased them;
that such laws as We're then under de-
bate We're uncivilized and unmanly.
And there were columns of similar
twaddle Among the lot was the tier
ated statement that women would cease
wearing high hats and broad hats and
obscuring hats when men ceased going
out between acts. No one has ever
been able to trace the slightest relation
between the act of one going out be-
tween acts and the intrusion by an
other of a monstrous and offending hat
between the eyes of a third person and
the stage. However, not all men go
out between acts, neither do all women
wear high hats, for there are some
sensible women, and some who have
conscience enough to feel the sting of
self-reproach when they wrong their
neighbors.
The San Francisco law, therefore. is
for women who have not this sensibility,
precisely as the law against larceny is
aimed at the thief. not at the honest
man. Since that time of agitation to
which we refer, what has happened?
Women have been coerced precisely as
men, for men are coerced. They are
compelled, for instance. to remove their
hats in public assemblies, and that, too,
when it would be deal more comforta-
bic to wear them. Several cities since
then have passed -high-hat ordi-
nances, and laws on the subject have
been introduced into twenty-one Legis-
latures, and there debated gravely. and
they passed in three Legislatures. Nine
leading theaters, one of them in Cali
fornia, now refuse seats to ladies who
wear offending hats. and yet the women
continue to patronize those theaters.
Public opinion is simply unanimous to-
day in favor of a protest that three
nounced absurd, ridiculous and i'm
possible"
But Sacramento women and all other
women must learn, as man has learned,
that the world moves and not even a
woman can impede it's progress They
must learn the world over that there is
no reason under the sun why any right
should be accorded to woman that
is denied to a man; that the age and
day has passed forever when it was
true that custom always makes law.
In this hour custom is so far from al
ways making law that it is very fire.
quently the target for the law, and
with entire success on the part of the
marksman.
No. ladies, tip-tilt your pretty noses
as you may. the inevitable comes. So
ciety and the law will not forever per-
nit you to be vulgar and impolite. There
Gonna ax-an preftN
woman must give way to, and one of
them is decent behavior in public places.
For be it remembered that no woman is
decent in a public place who offends in
such manner as TO convince the legis-
lative body of a great city like san Fran
cisco that it is necessary to legislate
against her.