Arizona republican., 1921-12-05

tradition that make the feminine leg so unconventional a display. It is only in the past few centuries that the people as mass have been fol- lowing the fashions. And now that
 we do, we take our precedents from court styles. not from peasant cloth ing. If we look to peasant garb we find that woman's ankle and even the calf and knee were in many coun-
 tries shown as a matter of course in
 the very days when a court damsel
 pretended that she moved on wheels.
 According to books on costume the
 peasant women of some part of Hol-
 land wore "an exceptionally short
 skirt" A picture shows the skirt as
 being about the length of the modern
 sirt that shocks the passing genera
 tion. A Swiss peasant girl of Lu-
 cerne a few decades back is shown wearing a skirt that the book frank | ly says revealed the knee and some times the garter. But there is no
 background in these pictures show ing a row of lifted eyebrows.
 These women dressed In short skirts for farm work. And when they made holiday clothes they used the same [ pattern and made the costume beau tiful by embroidery and better mate rial.
 The court lady's hardest work was | crossing the ballroom without tam | snng her train. She could afford to | be cripple for the sake of fashion. | The busy peasant could not
 Today the modern woman is more | akin to the peasant woman in the &C., tivity of her life. The short skirt. ' therefore. suits her. The flapper who ! sails down the avenue at noon is a | shop or office worker. She will 1t ] is true, go to extreme limits to make | herself fashionable. But she still | flaunts the short skirt and dares the
 horrible fate of being perhaps re- ! garded as old fashioned. The short
 skirt. we have been told, is com
 fortable. and when not carried to | extremes is far less to be decried
 than the hobble skirt. sheath and 1 gown. the transparent X-ray skirt,
 the germ catching train, and other 1 whims of recent years.
 The knee is getting more atten- ton that it has had for centuries. l There is even a sentiment in favor of a return to knee exposure for men. | While women ar. so impetously pur- l suing freedom ard their rights. men l it seems, have been entraDped by fashion into foregoing their long held
 right Of freedom of the knees.
 While his lady went weighted down by ton of silk train. the courier of a few centuries back proudly strode about in a doublet and hose
 or brooches and boots. A good cali
 and a trim ankle were assets ot i manly beauty. A man might load himself down with a velvet cape Ht
 would wear sleeves that resembled
 giant sausagcs. lie would even ap- pear in trunk hose which made hin
 look as if he had 9 pumpkin abou
 his waist and forced him to go through doors sideways. But his les
 remained pretty cons 'stently in evi. dence. And among all the gossip , and tirades against extravagant fash ions there is no record that we car
 find to show that the world evel , objected to the masculine knee. The Pest of Pantaloons
 , Yet at the beg ming of the nine , teenth century statesmen alike al
 lowed themselves to be encased il trousers. Even Thomas Jefferson ' whose shapelv calf was so widely ad | mired, surrendered to the demands o | style. This step was taken by MT | ! Jefferson and called forths siehs O ] regret. IL was admitted, however
 that he could Go no differently. con sidering that he was of the progress siVe school of politics. For polite ] were the mea7s by which trouser were railroaded into fashion in thi country.
 The Republicans, being the progres sive element, to0k to wearing ful | l length pantaloons as a symbol c l their courage to abandon the con ventionai. The fede-alists. on the oth = CT hand clung to the knee breeche and buckled shoes as a badge c T gentlemanly conservatism.
 It is interesting to note that tn ', society of the early nineteenth cen tury regarded trousers as uncoutl $ AE official refused the Duke of Well l, ington admittance to an assembly = London because he appeared at tn S door iL trousers Mistress Monroe a y the White House made it rule tha y gentlemen we to attend the presi II dents receptions in the convention; t small clothes. But at last trousel g took the plac of knee brooches eve O at society functions.
 q That the modern mans clothes aI - unbeautiful. unsanitary and uncon y win Cobb in an impassioned plea f. k the return of short brooches sue d as are worn in the army and f, IS golfinC He feels that the stow,
 pipes iu which modern man stall
 around hide 9 fec t'Ire Of his ana t omy about whic le can il afford