AFGHANISTAN: Patriarchs in Pants

In the King’s name :

Pants Shirts Cravats Coats Shaves

Such was the gist of a Royal Decree at which robed and bearded members of Afghanistan’s Parliament trembled, submissive but indignant. Meekly they obeyed.

Seven hundred strong they marched through the Capital City of Kabul to the Great Bazaar. There, by the generosity of alert, up-to-date King Amanullah of Afghanistan, they were assisted into pants, buttoned into shirts, tied with cravats and hustled into coats. All these garments, cut after modes observed by King Amanullah on his recent tour of Europe (TIME, Jan. 23 to June 4), had been made by Afghan needlemen from native approximations to suitings and shirtings. Remained only the titanic project of clipping, shaving.

At this crucial point several of the patriarchs in pants positively refused to be shaved. They pointed out that the Koran enjoins all Moslems to go bearded and turbaned, like the True Prophet. Enough to have transgressed the first of these commandments! By the Beard of the Prophet they swore they would not be shaved!

When tidings of insubordination came to King Amanullah, he acted with wily moderation. In the King’s name it was shortly proclaimed that only those who especially desired the favor of His Majesty need shave. When Parliament assembled most chins were nude.

Suavely King Amanullah addressed the 700. A despot, he can charm with honeyed words. He did. Perspiring patriarchs ceased to wriggle in their pants, succumbed to royal blandishments, beamed when King Amanullah implied that their high destiny is to make Afghanistan pants-conscious.

Later at a Grand Fete in the gardens of His Majesty’s palace, a special detachment of police gently prodded stray Parliamentarians who forgot that they were not robed and proceeded to squat upon the ground, though chairs abounded.