Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-08-06
MATTER OF MODESTY
After All It's Largely Ruled
+. by Climate.
SOME FUNNY CUSTOMS
WoHEH WHO LIFT THEIR SKIRTS,
BUT NOT THEIR WELLS
What Il Proper In One Country Is
Likely to Be Wrong In
@ Another.
SOME FUNNY CUSTOMS

written Tor The, Evening Star.
Theodore Roosevelt is the first President |
of the United States who has been called |
upon to act as official censor in a case in |
vo1ving the delicate question of personal |
modesty. |
1t has gone out over the land how the |
sansculottic condition of the wild Igor |
rotes at the st. Louis exposition shocked
the sensiblitfes of some highly modest pa |
irons Of the public morals, and how these
picturesque Filipinos-with a solitary ex-
ception-have persistently refused to don
the trousers purchased for them. We have
also heard how this vital question. after
troubling the exposition authorities, was
finally referred to Oyster Bay, and how
President Roosevelt made the ruling that
the loin cloth is all-sufficient for the COM
mon demands Of human modesty.
Questions of this kind have been brought
to the Federal authorities before; in fact.
1t is a part OF their routine duty to pass
upon them. But never before have they
gone to the President. The jealous post
office inspectors constantly exerting a
censorship over works of art. and are ex-
Guiding from the mails pictures which set
forth the GOd-like human form in too great
a paucity of conventional apparel. pho
tographer who lately emerged from the
cactus dotted deserts of Mexico brought
with him and published photograph De
piCting a group of Indian children in swim
ming. The government promptly conf1s.
Gated the negative. In the great capital
city there is official in federal hire VINO
acts censor of theatrical posters, and
requires that those featuring ladies' or the
ballet with too great an economy IN sklrts
shall be doctored with pastors covering
the portion of the picture where the skirts
ought to be.
Once Naked Savage Shamed by Ballet.
OF all ethical rules. it would seem that
those defining modesty-so far as tnat
virtue relates to concealment of the body
are the most inconsistent. When the great
explorer Stanley returned once from the
Congo region he brought with him little
savage boy whom he took with him on a
tour Of various enlightened countries. Th1s
youngster had never felt the rub OF clothes
until the British traveller had adopted him:
his parents and their parents, his protEers
and sisters. cousins and aunts, had ever
Travelled about In an Adamite condition
Stanley brought the boy to America, ana
in Boston took him to see ballet Inc
cnce naked Congo savage was utterly ever
come with shame and bofted the theater
If you sail over to Brittany you will find
there the pretty peasant lassie gong
abroad barelegged and scant OF skirt NO
sense of shame seizes her wheh I ane
should he accidently surprise her when ner
hair is down when she Is without her
cap, her cheek would burn with maiden
bushes.
Anomalies of Oriental Modesty.
In Moslem states all good women veil
| their faces and would rather lose their
skirts than this face covering. had they
| their choice between the two catastrophes
| 1t Is a common sight in Constantinopie on
Indictment days to see these yelled creatures
with their dresses pulled above their knees
walking abroad. recent envoy OF the
sultan accredited to Washington permitted
at,t,t 2x-t. tod
his sister to ride wheel IN an apors y. her
without her veil. At the Haitien legation
she was permitted by her brother TO par
take of a luncheon and Sit at table unvei-
ed on condition that no men were invited
The walters happened to be men ana Sne
forthwith withdrew. In Cairo these scrupu-
lousy yelled MoSlem women go down 10
the Nile to draw water and wade out INTO
the river. holding their skirts about their
waists. They do this without Improperly,
hut should they drop their wells they wouiu
be lost and the Nile might as well s"aiio"
them and their shame
The writer once accompanied to the the
alter an East Indian prince. who sat
throughout the performance with ms gen
erous turban on his head. A lady behind
asked that the obstacle to her view De re-
| moved. but the noble Moslem courteously
declined to doff the head covering for
hin, to have barred his head, as he AFTER
ward pxplained would in a public place
have been as great violation OF mooes,y
as for the lady behind him to have barred
her feet.
Japanese Modesty.
T, Ianan the ethics of modesty are SO
strict that a woman's father even Is for
hidden to enter the building set apart as her
nrivate boudoir But On the beach at Tokyo
the stranger may even see royal princesses
themselves go into the water in an absolute
state of nature A prominent railway OFF,
ciaI of this country, recently commissioned
to 20 to Japan. described to the writer MS
horror latter appearing on the beach at
Tokyo in the same costume when ne had
ha bitually worn in swimming when Doy,
TO find the beach filled with ladies' among
whom were the very daughters or ms hos..
When he Indignantly called for bathing
suit he was given the hint that such re-
quest would be considered an insult III
Japan He darted into the water and shiv-
or ed there until dark, only to find that he
must return to his bath house through a
space illuminated with paper lanterns ana
where his hosts family were awaiting nm
fearing that some unto"aru event hau "e
fallen him. T.
One of our diplomatic representatives In
Ianan commissioned under a past admins
tration committed the ,st,er 10 OF wncn
he spoke fiippantly of these conditions al
the bathing beach at Tokyo. The letter
found its way to print, ana me paper pun
fishing 1t got into the hands OF the Japanese
government, which promptly asked Tor the
recall of the writer
American Modesty.
But we need not go across seas to witness
inconsistencies. '.Modesty. so far as 1t re-
lates to concealment of the body Is the
child of climate and Of fashion" says
Frederick DeIIenbaugh. the artist-author-
ethnologist. in his new work. 1.-THE North
Americans of Yesterday" "One of our
own ladies thinks nothing of exhibiting
her bare shoulders and bosom at the opera
under the gaslight; but she would not do 1t
in the daylight. On the beach 1t would also
be improper, but there she is not troubled
If her lower extremtties are seem.
Nor do we have to leave our own CONT
mental domain to find such confirmed sans
culottists as the wild Igorrotes of our Phil
ippine possessions. Our Indian bureau has
been waging among its charges a crusade
in favor of the hated trousers. How sue
cessful this has been we may judge from
the last report of the head of that industri-
Gus branch of the government OF our In
dian population of 263 ,2233 but 111.7OI wear
citizens dress wholly; only 44.5aS wear 1t
sin part" The other 1G6.96S wear the ma
tive costume entirely. On the reservations |
some startling sartorial incOngruities are
to be seen. In hot weather the almost uni
yersal aboriginal costume of our red men |