Life, 1895-02-21 · page 12 of 18
Life — February 21, 1895 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Theatre-Hat Legislation" - Life Magazine Satire This page satirizes state lawmakers proposing laws to criminalize wearing large hats to theaters—a genuine early 20th-century problem where women's elaborate, wide-brimmed hats obstructed other patrons' views. The article mocks the legislators' disproportionate response, arguing they've targeted the wrong culprit. Rather than punishing (mostly lower-class and immigrant) women for wearing fashionable hats out of ignorance or lack of breeding, the satirist says theater *managers* are the real offenders. Managers deliberately ignore the problem because they've already collected admission fees and fear losing male patrons' future business if they eject disruptive women. The accompanying cartoons illustrate the social absurdity: an anxious father hopes for a boy; a woman announces she's a girl instead—suggesting the "problem" of difficult women in society. The satire ultimately argues managers should use existing authority to maintain order, rather than legislators passing excessive punishments against society's poorest members.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THEATRE-HAT LEGISLATION. UST now there seems to be an epidemic among the law- J makers of the various States to deal by law with the problem of the theatre-hat. The offence of wearing to a place of amusement any head-gear which obstructs the vie of any other spectator is to be made a crime punishable by various tortures, varying all the way from immersion in boiling oil to subcutaneous injections of good taste and common sense. In some of the proposed legislation the theatre manager is madea farticeps criminés, with penalties varying all the way from two dollars to six dollars and a quarter. Dear hayseed legislators, do you not think that in your pro- posed remedy for a crying evil you have failed to show a due sense of proportion? If a woman makes herself a public nuisance, if she has no kindliness of heart or regard for the pleasure of others, it is not entirely her fault. She may never have had the advantages of decent breeding. She has probably ascended from the slums and has no other place to show her finery except at the theatre or on the street. She doesn't know as she sits in the complacent enjoyment of the queer head-gear she wears that people with better taste are perhaps pitying her for her lack of early advantages. If she happens to be a Jewess, she probably thinks that any reflections on her vulgarity are simply evidences of race prejudice. It seems hardly just to punish severely these poor creatures who sin from ignorance and lack of breeding. The real offender is the theatre manager. He can with perfect ease and entirely within his rights refuse admission to his s to any person who is not decently clad. He can also cause to be ejected from his premises any person who disturbs the performance or who interferes with the enjoy- ment of it by the other spectators. The suppression of the theatre-hat has always rested in the hands of the managers. But they are out for the dollar, and they know they have their male patron at a disadvantage. If they once secure his dollar-and-a-half, what do they care whether he sees the show or not? If they eject a woman because she persists in obscuring his view, they know they have secured a talkative enemy who will never surrender. What you should do, dear legislators, is to remove the boiling oil from the vulgar or ignorant she-person who wears the hat, and apply it to the theatre manager who ejects forcibly the man who objects to the hat in loud and angry tones, The man has a far better right to disturb the per- formance by his objections than the she-person has to obstruct the view of the man who has paid for his seat. Therefore, oh, wise law-makers establish that if any theatre * appearance in dem#-toilelte. Anxtous Father: A Boy? The Newcomer: SOLD AGAIN! I'M A GIRL! manager shall not at once eject from the seats of his house any she-person or he-person who knows so little as to wear her or his hat after becoming seated, the aforesaid manager shall have an entire bath-tub full of boiling oil to himself, and shall likewise refund to every spectator ten times the price of his or her ticket upon legal proof that a hatted or bonneted person has been permitted to occupy a seat. Once establish this law and The American Society for the Suppression of Theatre Hats will see that it is properly enforced, besides enriching its treasury by the collection of penalties. W neerely hope that Mr. Beerbohm Tree won't go back to England and write a book about America. We are very sensitive in the matter of British criticism, and Mr. Tree's experiences would really seem to give a firm foundation for severe strictures on this country. The first thing we do to him on his arrival is to set his hotel on fire and subject the dignified actor to the ordeal of a public Then he takes a little jump comicbooks.com