Many of these hatpins were so attractive (and often extremely expensive) that they have become a specific field of collecting in their own right. The fact that they were often around a foot or more long also meant they became a very useful protective ‘weapon’ for any lady that found herself in a difficult or compromising situation. Receiving a purposeful prod from one of these pins was described as being like ‘the sting of a hornet’ and although I have never been stung by one of these insects, I can imagine it must have been a very painful experience. Such was the size of these pins – excessive in the opinion of some – that they quickly gained notoriety and, in several cities around the world including New York, Hamburg and Berlin, there were proposals to bring in laws to control just how long they could be. Seems like the Health and Safety busybodies were around even then! Their cause in Berlin in particular was bolstered as a result of one nasty accident, reported in a Daily Mail article of 17 December 1908 entitled ‘Deadly Hatpin – Heavy Casualty List in Berlin’, about one unfortunate lady who, as she rushed into a crowded store to get a sale bargain, walked straight onto the end of one of these pins and was permanently blinded in one eye. Horrific! And in similar vein, the Paris Daily Mail in April 1909 reported that a bill was being introduced in the Arkansas legislature in the USA to officially reduce the permitted standard length of these pins to a mere nine inches, and to oblige people take out permits for longer pins. Tram companies in at least one German town also joined in the rumpus and forbade the wearing of these long pins by passengers. Around the world, ever-enterprising individuals spotted an opportunity and patented all sorts of ideas to cap off the sharp end of hatpins to make them safer.
And yet, on a more whimsical note, there were those who found an amusing side to things. Music hall ballads of the later Victorian and Edwardian periods could be pretty bawdy as the composer of the following cockney offering amusingly noted at the time: