Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1913 — Ankle-Binding Skirts Keep Cars Behind Time [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Ankle-Binding Skirts Keep Cars Behind Time

INDIANAPOLIS. Ind.—Tight-fitting skirts delay traction cars, and make it almost impossible for conductors and motormen to keep up to the required schedules. Especially is this true in the case of cars which make many stops. Men at the traction terminal station estimate that it takes a woman three times as long to board a car as it did in the days when they wore wide skirts. Doss Shafer, patrolman, stationed at the traction depot, is an observing man, and he has had his attention called to the tight-fitting skirt nuisance by train crews many times. He says some women trying to board a car often make from three to five attempts before succeeding. One woman with a tight skirt hob-

bled to the step of a car the other day. In each hand she carried a suit case. After three attempts to board the car, jhe said with a sigh: "I don’t believe I can manage it.” It was then that Shafer stepped forward. The conductor, who was ready to start the car, grabbed the suit cases, and Doss gave the woman a boost that lifted her to the first step of the car, whence, in spite of the tight skirt, she struggled to the platform, affirmed Samuel Thrasher, caller at the traction station. "Tigh skirts certainly delay traffic." said Thrasher. “It does not seem possible, but when it is found that thirty seconds longer are required for a woman to enter a car than formerly, it is soon seen that a great deal more time is consumed at stations. Women to get on a car in tight skirts generally need help. However, some of them boost their skints to their knees and scramble on without any help. These new creations of fashions make it almost Impossible for women to step up the- fifteen to eighteen inches necessary to get upon the first step of an interurban car."