THOUGHTS FOR THE TIMES.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 July 1923, Page 2

THOUGHTS FOR THE TIMES.

NATIONAL Cfl.Tl'ltK. .Man is always prone to lament the decadence of the age in which he lives. Alnuist two thousand years ago the lfoinan p'N't in an atrabilious mood saw that “'our fathers, inferior to their siies begat us who are inferior to them, and will in our turn beget a still more degenerate progeny.” Indeed, a melancholy process of deterioration! 11 the theory he correct, modern man must he rather a poor creature—a. view to which the pessimists whole-hearted-ly subscribe. The ’‘gloomy Dean” deplores the falling away from the austere standards of the post. The “Gentleman with the Duster” seeks in eontemporary life for the lofty moral piinciple that characterised the Victorians and seeks in vain. A colonial Bishop roundly declares that London is every whit as Pagan ns Za.nz.ibar. 'lho NeoGeorgian is reckless, restless, unstable, frivolous and avid of sensation. 11l literature his taste is pathological. In art he is addicted to strange fads and grotesque extravagances. To barbaric negroid melodies ho dances measures which originated in the jungle of equatorial Africa or the orgiastic revels ot tile South American natives. He has forsaken the domestic hearth for the night-club; lie mocks at sanctions and restraints which were once respected; he is. in a word, a tiorough detrimental, the unedifving product of an era of social disintegration.—Sydney Herald.