MY DEFENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 August 1925, Page 1

MY DEFENCE.

Why is ii, I wonder, that some people are never tired of proclaiming, to an voile who will listen, the vices of the modern girl? says ".Modern Girl” in the London "Daily -Mail." She is. it seems, not only morally degenerate tslie has been that ever since the Fall) but is fiat-chested, ••anaemic and unsightly. And, as a final proof oi decadence, she* wears silk stockings at 4s lid a pair. The same kindly souls, pointing to the fact that 81) per cent, of the volunteers for the Army are rejected, assure us that the modern young man is a tit mate for the modern young woman. And that is ihe worst insult they can tliinlf of.

AVhat rubbish it all is! Jo begin with. what. logical reason is there for supposing that the whole physique of the nation has changed in one generation ! J The girl of 1925 certainly looks slimmer and xtraighter than her mother did at the same age, but the explanation is simple. She does not clamp herself in steel to make hot waist look unnaturally small and raise her bust, and that is the whole secret. Any typical woman ol to-day could acquire the Gibson girl figure, Imt site declines to do anything so foolish, partly because a Gibson girl in real life would move her to mirth, and partly because sin* could uoi beat to be so uncomfortably confined. I doubt whether, since ancient times, there has ever been a period when woman’s dress was its sensible as it is to-day. It looks attiactive. Igives plenty of freedom, admits of radical changes for different occasions. and cannot possibly injure the wearer’*, health. Of what othei petiod could as much he said? As for all the other gibes thrown at the girl of to-day. the best answer is performances. Ate wear, so our critics tell us. unhealthy clothes, eat the* wrong food, drink too many cocktails. smoke too many cigarettes, dance too late* and elo a thousand other things we should not. Consequently we are debilitated, ttertous wrecks. Perhaps. But most- of tnv friends can dance till 2 a.in. play IS holes next morning, anel spend the afternoon shopping or playing another round ; and the stamina ol the* girl in business is just as remarkable. Did any .simpering, wasp-waistod damsel of last century ever do as much? Inless her contemporaries have lied, she would have swooned at the very t nought.