Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-04-06
THEATRICAL PROBLEMS.

The Inter Mountain is not in sympathy
with the habit which the democratic
press has fallen into of criticising the la
dies just as soon as ''the smoke of bat
tle' has cleared away from the blood-be-
spangled field of a political set-to. Too Of
ten the tremendous strain of a political
campaign upon the editorial intellect
finds a delightful reaction in learned es-
says on the evils of wearing steel braces
instead of whalebone in ones c~orsets,
Notwithstanding the scarcity of whales.
The most popular pastime, however,
seems to be the irrepressible theatrical
hat. Even the conservative n ably
edited Butte Miner this morning pulls
the burr off that antediluvian chestnut,
and enters another protest against the
wearing of hats during a theatrical per-
formance. 1t insists that it should be
absolutely impossible to see a hat in a
theater of Butte during a performance"
Theoretically, the suggestion of the
Miner is all right. Short men do not like
to sit behind a tall hat. and newspaper
men are usually short. 1t might be nearer
the truth to say they are unusually short
most of the time. But there are two sides
to this hat question, and the ladies are
entitled to an inning occasionally, in
this fierce controversy over the optical
equities of the parquet.
The editor of the Miner has dissected
enough politicians in his time to know
something about physiology, and that the
spine of the average man is longer than
the spine of the average woman, where
fore the top Of the average mans head is
nearer the ceiling thar the top of the av-
erage woman'g hat. If he cannot over
see the lady in front of him, he ought to
be able to see over her. We suspect that
a great deal Of the hue and cry against
the theatrical hat is due to a desire on
the part of the average man to see how
some other fellows wife does her hair
up.
There is a monotony in a sea of hats
which the careful observer cannot fail to
see. Aside from the color and adjust
ment of their several and respective
feathers, and the ancestry of the stuffed
birds that are usually on guard, hats diff
fer but little, except in price. But the
hatless lady is a different proposition.
How does any Intelligent person expect
a man to see what is going on in a thea
ter when it takes all his time to find out
whether this or that lady stands in with
nature OF wears a jute switch? 49,
A bald headed man always attracts at.
tention in a theater. not because bald
headed men are scarce in this high alti-
tude, where hard thinking is required to
make a living, but simply because he is
bald headed. At hatless woman always
attracts attention because she is never
bald headed, but on the contrary sug-
gests the unfairness of nature in the dis
tribution of hair. She looks more as if
you would rather get acquainted with her
thar if she had her hat on. In some cases
she is more interesting than the rest Of
the scenery on the stage, especially when
%scrupulous attention has been given to
following fashions that we haven't got
ten used to, in the way of doing up the
hair to resemble the sweet little hay
stacks on a New England farm.
On the whole, the theatrical hat does
not annoy the gentleman who sits on his
overcoat half as much as he annoys the
delicate little lady behind him. n if
men would overcome the abominable ha-
tween acts, we apprehend that the hat
question would soon settle itself.
The Anaconda Standard says the Cliff
ford bill did not permit free and unlimited
prize-fighting, though vetoed on moral
grounds by Governor Smith. Then why