The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-18
BIRMINGHAM SEES ITS FIRST HAREM SKIRT ON STREETS Great Crowd Pursues Petite Young Girl in New
 Apparel LIKE A MOB DID TT SURGE ALONG STREET HoOts and Jeers Added to Confusion. So Birmingham People H.
 Now Seen the Famous
 "Jupeculotte'
In Birmingham on St. Patrick's

Tn Birmingham on St. Patrick's pss | girl in harem skirt appeared | It stirred the passion of the curious | this jupeculotte.
 The crowd put an end to street car | traffic and automobiles stood still in | their tracks.
 | Nothing of similar nature has ever before occurred in Birmingham. The sidewalks were filled to overfiowing by curious, jeering. nondescript horde of sans-culottes. Followers of the mob and the jupeculotte thronged the streets. The policemen stood like bad boys In corners, knowing not what should be done. They had been run over by calves and had nothing to say.
 Birmingham smiled-that is, all of Bir- mingham which was not in the mob of the l jeering and froicsome. l But the girl continued her way in her harem skirt and blush. Perhaps she realized that when old and gray she could tell her grandchildren that years ago she had set the fashion for fash ionable city. They are common now" she might say but then-well, it was diff | ferent"
 The new skirt that the modsts of Paris have designed for American women was first spied on Second avenue and Twen- tieth street. Men who might have faced a cannon without f1inching could not have moved step for three minutes after be- holding the new satellite in the firma- ment of fashion. Here it came. It was gray. The upper section was all right. The lower resembled the half blouse, half trousers of a Zouave. One had closely to | inspect to detect the point of separation, | but once having been detected the point was plain enough. It never disappeared again.
 l As stated. there was moments pause. Then some hoodlum raised a shout. Moth 1 ing abashed was she-this hamburger of a new era in fashion. She raised her head. tossed her bonnet. looked neither to the right nor the left. and walked ahead brisllly.
 The crowd grew. The shouting waxed stouter and warmer Faster became the pursuit, Right on the natty heels of the girl was this mob which stretched a block. Honest people who were rushing to do a little shopping before the falling of darkness, fathers who wanted 10 get home to the wives and kiddies were | forced to stop, hug a wall or get across 1 the street. But the honest people did not object. They saw what was coming The mob was making fun for them.
 At the corner of Twentieth street and Third avenue, the girl seems first to ap- preoiate that she was attracting some at tention. It might have occurred to her that she would be roughly treated; for the mob was jeering right on her heels, and of all kinds. descriptions and colors were the members of the mob. And the police men would not have interfered. It was none of their business. So she quicSened her steps. and thus illustrated the ad- vantage of the jupeculotte over the hob ble skirt-its sister on the other extreme She reminded one of a little rabbit who had attracted the attention of pac, of hounds. Onward she walked. She did not run, although, now, she seemed to want to show her heels. She would have no doubt. but for the fact that she real ized the necessity of retaining her dig nifty.
 When Loveman. Joseph & Loeb's store loomed up she dashed within the doors rom the Jeerlng crowd, the ldugnlnB sightseers, the unpleasantness of it all | But this mob had serious business at hand and through the doors it pursued. | So the harem skirt was forced to run | again. This time it divided itself in the direction of the Bijou theatre. and, turn ing, merged on Second avenue at the postoffice. The mob by this time was so large that nothing else could occupy space save directly against the walls, and in the doorways of the storehouses.
 At the Peerless corner, Second avenue and Nineteenth street, policeman joined the mob. 1t is not known what his object was. But he did not check the pursuit nor speak to the pursued. The latter. on reaching Caheen's, on Second avenue near Twentieth street. rushed in for shelter. The doors were thrust together | and the mob was halted. Hungrily it fingered about the front. But the first harem had gone
 It was the day of the jupeculotte in | Birmingham.
 During the pursuit many ladies were interested and smiling spectators Nero might have fiddled had he been there.
 The disciple of new fashion declined to tell her name or her residence ad dress But Teddy Roosevelt has never attracted more attention on one after noon.
 Camp Hardee Meets