That Dangerous Hatpin—500 Eyes Sacrificed!
By G. E. Langdon
LET our ladies stop and think for a moment what probabilities there are of their doing a most painful and irreparable damage to their associates by wearing the prevailing hatpin. According to Current Events, a paper having the largest circulation in the educational world, over 500 persons in this country alone have lost an eye each in the last year from this dangerous custom! Think of it! 500 eyes lost in one year in one country! Think of the severest suffering, the inestimable loss, the most painful regrets on the part of the innocent(?) offender! Could a woman ever forgive herself? It is almost too barbarous and sickening to contemplate. Lady, who knows but to-morrow you may be in a crowd, or an automobile, a rail-car, or some carriage, and by some accident be quickly jostled or thrown against your associate, and the same accident13effectively occur from your pin! It is quite possible one of your loved one's eyes may be sacrificed. Have you thought, too, that the next accident might be your own eyes? What can replace their usefulness and beauty, not to mention the suffering? Let us illustrate this execrable destruction from the hypothesis of a peaceful village of 500 inhabitants. This happy little village this year must meekly submit to the (kind and thoughtful) women of our land coming to it and going from house to house, and with a shocking hatpin jabbing out an eye from each member, and year by year repeating the atrocity! Could words be too denunciatory, or punishment too severe? Immediately our good sisters reply, "Why, what could we do without them? What can we have in their place?" Sad, indeed! What can the 500 persons who have each lost an eye have in their place?—Why, a staring, deathlike glass eye, of course. "And then, my pretty and costly pins were gifts from my dearest friends!" Lamentable thought! Yes; but our eyes of untold beauty and value,—are they not a most precious gift from our dearest and greatest Friend? Can you longer ruthlessly jeopardize them? Who doesn't shudder at seeing the sharp ends of from one to four hatpins projecting from two to six inches beyond the band of a lady's hat? It must be a lamentable thought to a woman of heart to know she has, by wearing such a dangerous device, been the means of depriving her own or somebody's else sweet babe of one of its most lovely and precious gifts for usefulness and beauty,—the eye! There are several devices that are efficient and perfectly harmless. Why not get them, and save yourself from possibly a most sad and everlasting blame? One device is made in nickel, silver, or gold, in the shape of a large and long hatpin held in a slotted piece of metal that is fastened to the inner part of the hat. Two are required. They are entirely free from that fierce, warlike, and blood-curdling appearance that surrounds the usual ugly pin. Whoever the man is that invented this humane device, he deserves patronage. Now, good lady, for the sake of humanity, will you be one who will lead out against this cruel destruction, and help in this much-needed reform by word and deed? Written by one who just barely escaped the horrible effect of "that dangerous hatpin." G. E. LANGDON.