Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1921)
HIB SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, MAY 15, .1921 GJie ' : " ' '''' w. X How a Pair Called the "Most Beautiful in the World" Now Challenges the -Merits of the Pair Just Insured for SI 5,000 A i r r Beauty Contests. ft ' lilllN , I I PrTrn i i . VA A ijl M i f ' I VA. i4' -if -'' I I - , x i . A yy-f jT f . ! ' 3 1 i ? ! if .tlps-- - I -u:- IJ WW t- " . i k?:i .fzr ', JWJ I-- n . J : 'V. ;1 I1 , yiCaMi '4 It J JvCZj- 't'Jz cSz?'p4?C?' ?5 V7 sfsVC? S'&'lf&J'T?. 1 4 " BT ETHEL THURSTON. A COMMITTEE of .eerions minded gentleniea got together the other day aftd roted the lees of a certain MDe. Mistingruett the most beautiful things of their kind in the whole, French republic It was a sad day fur numerous other aspiring dem oiseUes, but a distinguished occas'on for two important members of the human anatomy. While this action only meant that the, attitude of the world was being made vocal, it was important because it of fie any marked the escape of the word gs" from the stifling limbo of indelicacy and by that token, sanc tioned thw extraordinary new rivalry In legs wfilch seems to have reached a crescendo of excitement at this hour. The French, of course, being a real istic and plain-spoken people, never felt quite the same horror of admit ting the possessioa of female under pinnings as did their English-speaking neighbors. They used the word without exhibiting the fact But, the eklrts of women having long since threatened the sanctity of the agi tated and fluctuant knee-cap. there was no use publicly blinking the fact any longer that legs could be quite as aesthetically respectable as dimpled chin, or a swan-like neck. Hence the solemn conclave and the gravely rendered decision; henee the shattered hopes of thousands of dem- j olsellea and the eminence of Mile. Uistinguett. Hence the loud crash of a puritan tradition ,ln these states, : and hence the prolific 'blooming of i wondrous crep of what once were limbs but now are good old Saxon legs Athletic Lifted the Skirt. And fha't the lid is off once and fc-f all that legs are legs from this'time forth, is amply manifest on every side in America. Miss Helen Shea, a Broadway show girl, knows the value of hers so well that she has' had them Insured for the sum of 113,000. She might conceivably suffer a fracture of the clavicle or a collapse of the vocal cords and bear up under it, but if anything happened to her shapely props, literally and figuratively her tupport would be gone. Miss Shea, of course, is not the first show , girl to. realise the commercial value of her legs. The old wheeze about the merit of a musical comedy being determined before the curtain has risen two feet is at least- ten years old. But ten years ago the public taste would not have allowed her to proclaim the fact with such unblushing frankness. Why the modest young woman of a few years back eonld talk about her liver all day but was 'nevertheless barred from mentioning that part of her anatomy immediately north of her- ankle is a matter for Dr. Freud and his psycho-analytical brethren. But such was the fact whatever its explanation. She would admit to a I lirab or a foot and under pressure would sometimes confess to an anklo but a leg, never! la those days, however, she was aided in her concealment of her un derpinnings by a skirt so long that tc hid even the knobs of her anktes. For all that the luckless male, could see under formal circumstances, she might have been upheld by limbs made of wood fiber or papier-mache. When women began to go In for ; athletics, though, a. skirt that al ; lowedVgreater freedoib of movement was necessary, and what was a dress used only for sport occasions shortly became the commonly accepted gar ment for street wear. From that time on there was a steady upward revision. The modish skirt finally reached to the full part of the calf and philippics were being hurled from the seats of the reformers at the brazen creatures who wore them. Even the adventurous-mlsded were inclined to think tt had gone far enough. The war came and the world gen erally was shaken loose from some of its old conceptions. The purists felt the concussion from the hollows of xthelr feet to the tops of their haircuts. The Earlslan dressmakers, pleading a scarcity of materials, but realizingall the time that they were Inspired entirely by a desire for an even franker, fuller and more daring effect, sent the skirt to the knees and there it is seen aMhis good hour. Why' a Maa Taras te Look. On rainy and windy days of yore, groups of callow and curious young men would foregather on the promi nent corners and giggle with delight when an Inch or two of sheer silk, above the normal allowance, was ex posed to their gase. Those groups don't assemble any more, because rainy days and windy corners bring no greater revelations than .one can behold with the day at a dead calm. Has the male lost his interest la ' limbs since they became public and since they became legs? Hardly. He haa lost his curiosity, perhaps, but his interest remains, and for good, sound reasons. The crowds that throng the auditorium to hear BeeV thoven's fifth symphony aro not moved by curiosity.. Most of them have beard it many times before; some of them are familiar with every bar, every phrase, every change of tempo and expression. They are In spired by ad aesthetic motive; and, so is the young man who revels so frankly in the plump and comely calf when it is appropriately tiound in silk and often when it isn't. The callow juveniles who gathered on the street corners to watch the girls get Into their carriages or the street ears were hauled up, every Pnow and then, as fit objects of public scorn. Even in this sophisticated era one occasionally hears a young woman complain, that some of her male friends constantly pass her on the street without speaking for the reason that their eyes never reach her face. - . But great majority of the girls realize that occurrences ft this sort are nothing more than sltould be ex pected. The time was when a girl would say of an. extravagant friend: "She puts all her money on her back." The turn of events has made that expression obsolete. She now puts as little on her back as possible but that's another story. If one would know where the-girls put their money these days let them appraise her wardrobe item for item. They used to dress from the, head down but now they dress from the feet up. A recently produced motion picture turned on a man's ' identification of his sweetheart by th stockings she j 7 tV ft -rA L JsSss? .jrj'cr fsze? Z n if Via1 Biijtffc, jimiit'iMillrw FhotOs by Kadel & Herbert. wore. This is a fair index of the times because stockings are getting to be the real center of interest of the female costume. More and more do they reflect the personality of their wearers. Already, where the girl who wants to be modish has only a limited amount of money to put en her clothes, she sacrifices everything else to smart shoes and stockings. What more natural, then, that the young man should get to know tne girl down the street by the turn of her legs; whaf more human than that hs should rejoice in a pair so care fully wrought that Phidias might have hewn them with his chisel. But where will It all end. asks the bewildered conservative. That ques tion wilt have to ba referred to Friend Kismet or the Girl With the Thousand yea. The mas who would dare prophesy In such a matter would be capable of accepting the presi dency of a newly ereated Ukrainian republic. Probably dresses will corns down or perhaps women may dis card them altogether and take to knee trousers. But. however that turns out, legs have been formally and finally deliv ered from Coventry. GOGGLE-EYED MOTORISTS SEE WOMAN FESTOONED BY SNAKE NoveJ Sight Stnnt of Reptile Study Club Hunting Fields of Jersey and Seeking to Teach Regard for Creatures. "D' O TOU see what I see?" said one chauffeur to his com panion as e halted his trnck at a bare ledge of rock on the Great Notch-Montclair road, writes Ray mond T. Torrey in the New Tork Post. "Great suffering Auat Maria!" said the head of a family party in a tour ing car as he halted, too. More motorists pulled up and stared, goggle-eyed. Two small boys going fishing turned and. their jaws dropped as they gaaed. A huge snake, yellow and white and bronze, seven feet long and three inches thick, was festooned in some what torpid folds about the shoul ders of a young woman, who was facing a. battery of photographers. With them were several members of what might be termed, for the mo ment, the reptile press, besides a dozen others. It was the annual spring hunt of the Reptile Study club. It was a rainy day. and any native Jersey snakes had sense enough to keep in their holes. The only reptiles ab original to the locality which the members had been able to find in the wet thickets along the road were a few tiny black and red striped sala manders, dragged squirming and in dignant from the shelter of rocks overturned by the searchers. But the. director of the society, Al leu S. Williams, who has held these hunts for the last five years to bring before the pNiblic the aim of the so. clety, to protect and prevent unrea soning slaughter of harmless and beneficial snakes, did not want the reporters and photographers disap pointed. So he brought along, snugly wrapped in cotton bags and packed In a suitcase, four snakes from his pri vate stock. Two of the four were serpents such as might be found in New Jersey, and might have been seen on this day but for the bad weather. They were the hog-nosed snake or puff adder, known iu exclusive snake circles as heterodon platyrhlnus,. and the mountain black snake, otherwise coluber obsoletus. They were comparatively small, and, to give the reporters an idea of what the reptile tribe can do wben en couraged, Mr. Williams brought along the big fellow, a bull snake, from the neighborhood" of Brownsville, Tex., which carries the formidable title of pituophis - say I bellona, ' and the slightly smaller king snake, also from the southwest, which, though he would no doubt be surprised to learn of It, is scientifically classified as ophlbulus gat ulna getulus. These two were large and Impos ing. The reporters, hardened to strange assignments, gapped a little aad stood at first somewhat offlshly in the offing when Mr. Williams took aid Mr. Pttuophls out of his bag. But after he posed about the shoulders of Mrs. Williams, who is a writer herself vnder the name of Elisabeth Remington, and behaved very nicely for the photographers, they consented to festoon his snakeshlp about their slightly shrinking forms and were snapped for the news pictures. The two boy fishermen stood on the outside of the circle of spectators during this scene. "What do you do when you see a snake?" asked one of the members, seeking to impart a lesson in kindness to such creatures. "We kill 'em," said one boy. "Why?" "Cause they eat the fish. Oh, yes. they do. Why once when I was up at Bear Mountain park I saw a water adder with a catfish as long as that in his nfouth." "Wouldn't you like to hold this one and see how gentle be is?" inquired Mr. Williams, offering the huge bun snake. "Gosh NO." replied the boy, as he receded in the middle distance. - ' JoBbbt) PMce la Raised. Awgwan. Mother Johnny, will yon be a quiet for a bit? Johnny Tlx d It tor two-bita. Girl Declared Willing, but Not Eager for Work. Barkrard Dforamloa Praia With Problem mt Kalaios Daughter. N OW that the washing was hung on the line. Mrs. Botts was lean ing over the back fence and discuss ing with sympathetic Mrs. Johnson the problom of bringing up a daugh ter. Privately Mrs. Johnson consid ered that Lily Botts was born lazy, but Lliy's mother held tnat Lily's case was not so simple. "It ain't dat Lily ain't wlllln'." said Mr. Botts. "WUlin she is. an' arUve an' all dat. She la always ready to run on errands fo yo. But she ain't one dat heaha work callia' or see it a-lookin' at her." . "Heap mo' easy to do a thing yo'se'f dan be tellln' other folkseev" said Mrs. Johnson, understanding. 'An' dat'a de truth," agreed Mrs. Botts. "Bnt Lily ain't to blame; but maybe she gits discouraged a little too- easy. I s seen her tryln'. Last winter V says to her, LIIy,' I says. 'every time yo' find somethln' to do to help yo' mother round de Irouse I'M gib yo' a cent' Dat started her hard at It. Mrs. Johnson, it wss two weeks befo' she done git discouraged an' give it up." An' bow much did she make?" asked Mrs. Johnson. Nine cents," said Mrs. Bolts, "but I called it a dime."