MODERN WOMAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 March 1927, Page 1

MODERN WOMAN.

DRESS AND DANCING CRAZE. PRIEST’S SCATHING COMMENT. AUCKLAND, March 14. “It is the flask, aJid not the bar, that menaces society to-day,” declared the Rev. .Father McGrath, S.M., in a discourse on “Woman—Her Dress and Her Dances,” given lat the Sacred Heart Church, Ponsonby, where a mission for women is being conducted by the Marist Fathers. The preacher said he desired to avoid the generalisations and too frequent pessimism with which tho subject was often treated. His was a sincere effort to apportion the blame in an involved social problem and to give tile principles on which a solution should be attempted. “The words of St. Paul’s warning—‘Lot your modesty be known to all men, the Lord is nigli’—could be translated to mean, ‘lt pays to advertise,’ ” said Father McGrath, dealing with the question of dress. What he meant by that was that it paid every self-respec-ting girl, who planned a useful and wholesome life, to advertise her adherence to Divine ideals as a protection against the rakes who to-day were plotting her mill. Modes of dress could be attractive, but should make the right 'appeal. Clothes were to protect as well as to please. They were part of virtue’s armour. Many girls by their indecently attractive dress were simply advertising themselves “tto’r sale,” and they would go to the lowest bidder.

Speaking of dancing, Flather McGrath said ho would not attempt to define what dances were indecent. It was largely a matter for the individual. Love of notice and the passion , Tor pleasure found expression in unbecoming and sensual dances and in excessive indulgence in the perfectly lawful pastime of dancing. But certain dances unquestionably played up to tho sex impulse and were an occasion of sin, a direct challenge to the virtue of young people. “There are to be found girls so hardened to pleasure tWat I believe they would jazz on their mother’s grave,” Father McGrath added. He was speaking oi what he described as the irony of girls jazzing to such airs as “Pal of My Cradle Days,” and yet giving less land less consideration to their mothers. “It is true a girl’s best friend is still her mother,” he continued. “It is not inhuman and callous that she should heed the siren voice of a good spender, spendthrift even of virtue, against a mother’s warning.-' Those young people who ventured no more information about their movements than that thev were “going out” as a rule spoke only half a truth. “Down and out” covered the ease better, for a girl was on tho downward grade when home n'as regarded only as a cheap hoarding-house and maternal interest was resented as interference. The preacher condemned smoking and drinking because they were cheapening women. Tho fascinations of the practices were la fruitful source of ruin, and men who encouraged women in these practices were no friends to womanhood and no asset to society. It was the flask, and not the bar. that most menaced society to-day.