te. But the tendency to bizarre indecency has increased so that now
we are offered in our public ballrooms the spectacle of criminal
impropriety--of women's bare legs with painted knees, of naked backs and
lewdly veiled bosoms, of transparent skirts and suggestive nudity, of
decorated flesh and vulgar exposure generally--the sort of thing that
has ever preceded the downfall of civilizations. It has no relation
whatever to the nudity of innocence, as is perfectly obvious with one
glance at the type of dancing women that affects these disgusting
extremes, for their whole deportment is entirely in accord with their
scant covering and nastily conceived exposures. They are brazenly
inviting a certain kind of attention and they get only the sort of
attention they invite. They are degrading all womanhood with their
shamelessness, at a time when the more worthy of their sex have striven
to win and deserve to win that respect which should rightfully be
theirs.

The people are all overwhelmed by the appalling crime wave that has
beset the world--not only by murders, robberies and hold-ups, but by the
ghastly increase in marital unfaithfulness which clogs the divorce
courts; and the attacks against women and girls which have become a
daily department of the news. The incredible and loathsome conditions
cannot be overstated. They are widespread, staggering in their
viciousness. And we unhesitatingly declare that the preposterous
vulgarity and criminal impropriety of that vastly increasing number of
women who adopt these indecent modes for "party gowns" is, if not
responsible for the dirty conditions, at least a large and important
factor. And it is deplorable that, as the extremists jump from extreme
to extreme, the presumably decent women follow. They are slower to adopt
the full measure of indecency, but each season finds them
"conservatively" following at a respectful distance, so that the modes
for decent women to-day were the extremes of indecency a few short
seasons back.

Why do they do it? It is a poor explanation to declare that they thus
become more attractive to men. If they are honest with themselves, they
know very well that the sort of attraction thus engendered makes the
lowest possible appeal. If they are honest with themselves, they know
very well that masculine taste in such matters is absolutely in the
hands of women, that the standard they set is the standard which will
inevitably be adopted. It has been said