Chaperones for Sailors

Fortnight ago the British Legation in Montevideo issued an unusual decree: no British sailor, naval or mercantile, was to leave his ship without a local Briton as escort. Just as amazing was the official reason: Uruguayan maidens had become so immodestly pro-Allied that the honest British tars were embarrassed;* wherever they went they were greeted with effusive hugs and left covered with smears of sticky lip rouge. As the practice grew fashionable, local belles vied for the honor of kissing the most sailors, depositing the most makeup.

Suspicious foreigners suggested another possible reason for the order, that spy-conscious British diplomats feared their tars would fall into the hands of Uruguayan Mata-Haris.

* For a commentary on the embarrassments of U. S. bluejackets, see page 45.

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