vii, p. 54) says that, except actresses, Parisian women do
not wear drawers. Even by ballet dancers and actresses on the
stage, they were not invariably worn. Camargo, the famous dancer,
who first shortened the skirt in dancing, early in the eighteenth
century, always observed great decorum, never showing the leg
above the knee; when appealed to as to whether she wore drawers,
she replied that she could not possibly appear without such a
"precaution." But they were not necessarily worn by dancers, and
in 1727 a young _ballerina_, having had her skirt accidentally
torn away by a piece of stage machinery, the police issued an
order that in future no actress or dancer should appear on the
stage without drawers; this regulation does not appear, however,
to have been long strictly maintained, though Schulz (_Ueber
Paris und die Pariser_, p. 145) refers to it as in force in 1791.
(The obscure origin and history of feminine drawers have been
discussed from time to time in the _Intermediaire des Chercheurs
et Curieux_, especially vols. xxv, lii, and liii.)
Prof. Irving Rosse, of Washington, refers to "New England
prudishness," and "the colossal modesty of some New York
policemen, who in certain cases want to give written, rather than
oral testimony." He adds: "I have known this sentiment carried to
such an extent in a Massachusetts small town, that a shop-keeper
was obliged to drape a small, but innocent, statuette displayed
in his window.
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