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Monday, March 11, 2019

Letter to Editor Complaining About Painted Hussies Climbing Telephone Pole, Banisters, Riding Motorcycles, 1919

From the Hickory Daily Record, March 10, 1919

Theatrical Incident

To the Editor of the Record:

I am informed that on last Friday afternoon a number of young women belonging to a theatrical troupe came into our market place, and in an attempt doubtless to advertise their performance, one of their number climbed up a telephone pole while several of them invaded the fire station and, going upstairs, slid down the pole used by the firemen in answering an alarm. Some rode motorcycles, slid down banisters of public buildings, while two of them clambered into the buggy of an old man from the country, while a third held a camera to take a picture of him with them, whereupon the old gentleman was forced to alight from the vehicle to keep from being photographed in that plight.
What, I ask of you, must be the feelings of a refined stranger upon our streets to behold upon one side a painted hussy up a pole and on the other a number of her kind sliding down a pole—a brass pole at that—while farmers are jumping out of buggies to escape these women. What do our authorities mean? Our annual municipal election is approaching. Let us elect to office men who will permit no lady, however painted, to climb a pole, and who will so uphold our laws that an honest farmers may come to town without fear of being pictured in his buggy with one of these creatures on his knee.

--A Citizen

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