Sir, - A recent story in your paper was based on the curious attraction a crippled girl has for men, and I write, this hoping that some of your pretty crippled readers will be encouraged by the subject being opened and give us their views on this most interesting topic.
It is a fact that it is the helplessness of women which makes them attractive to men, so why should not the added helplessness of a missing or deformed limb be even more attractive?
In England the deformed or limbless girl usually resigns herself to Fate, and either tries to conceal her deformity or else takes no trouble with her looks and dress, and becomes dowdy and a disgrace to her sex.
Elsewhere things are very different. In France a deformity is often treated as an added attraction and boldly displayed, and even decorated. The French girl who has to wear legirons, has them made slim and neat, polished till they flash in the sun, and fitted into the neatest of boots, high-heeled where possible, and reaching high up the leg.
The irons are sometimes coloured. I have seen a pretty blonde wearing scarlet irons over white suede boots, with the straps at ankle and calve made of shiny patent leather.
The effect was delightful, and the wearer was the object of many flattering stares as she walk on the arm of her beau.
Another dark beauty once came to the restaurant where I was dining, dressed in an Oriental gown, while she wore a thick soled boot of figured gold, with the black cork sole decorated in gold to represent Moorish architecture, so that the effect was of a golden foot resting on the towers of a golden mosque.
The excitement of our fellow diners was intense, and she was the centre of attraction that night.
The next night eager eyes watched for her entrance, mine included. When she came she was dressed in scarlet, while her boot, also of scarlet, had painted on the white high sole a ring of young men in evening dress in various attitudes of supplication and adoration, who appeared about to be crushed by the disdainful and shapely scarlet foot. This lady later became a Paris celebrity.
I have seen another lady who had no right hand, who wore a heavily jewelled cap over wrist-length stump, with an enormous diamond set in the centre so that it flashed as she moved.
Another lady in America used her complete lack of a left arm in a novel way. Wearing a white gown cut low on the left side, and coming over the shoulder over the right, she had a distinctly futurist artificial arm fitted over her left shoulder and stump.
This was of gold colour, and jewels studded the places on her fingers where joints should have been. It was bent up and fastened on to her right shoulder, giving the appearance that it was holding her extremely daring gown in place - a remarkable novel and fascinating effect.
A friend once told me that she saw an American girl of sixteen or so with the stump of her arm "swallowed" by a jewelled green snake up to the shoulder, while the spasmodic movement of the short stump below the elbow made its tail wiggle in a most realistic way as it lay on the table before her.
But only the striking girl should adopt such remarkable things, and the less adventurous can conceal their deficiencies with realistic artificial legs and arms, while short legs can be hidden in high boots to a remarkable extent by having a dummy foot, the real foot being hidden in the leg of the boot with the toes pointed straight down (unfortunately, a most trying position), while leg irons can often be made to lie flat against the leg and laced inside to an over-knee boot, or, better still, a Russian boot.
The lame girl is used to being stared at, so she can carry off a novel idea better than most normal ones. But if she is frightened of being too daring, and her deformity cannot be concealed, she ought even then to remember that a lame foot in a neat boot with smart shining irons on the leg can be distinctly attractive if only by reason of its dis-symmetry, as it will call attention to a good face or figure.
Hoping this letter will interest and encourage some of your crippled girl readers,
Yours faithfully,
Hop Crutch