SOCIAL HABITS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4670, 5 March 1924, Page 2

SOCIAL HABITS.

GREAT CHANGE IN WAYS OF LIFE ✓

Was there ever a time in the history of man when he was so determined on being entertained ? asks the Morning Post. What was a luxury to our forefathers has become to us a necessity. In all our budgets we give a place to amusement. We feel that we cannot live without it. For one thing ours is a restless world. Cataclysms, such as wars and social upheavals, have become so common that Nature herself seems to have become infected by the prevailing restlessness, and every now and then over-, whelms man and his works with some dread visitation. The result is tha» the modern world is losing the old fixed ways of life, and, finding that all is flux, is out to make the most of the fleeting moments. It would be interesting to know how far thrift has been generally thrown overboard by this subtle sense of the insecurity of things which is stealing over tilts generation. The English and the Scottish peoples have certainly become devotees of pleasure, and where is the Puritan divine who could* cure tlvmi of the habit » Mowver. this craze for pleasure has Ehis curious and almost universal feature, that it is invariably pursued .away from home. This feature makes it net only more noticeable, but also more expensive. The Englishman’s house mty still be his castle, but it is no longer his pk asure-dome. Modern youth condescends to sleep at home, but it pre-* fers to take its pleasure abroad. Hence we see springing up in all directions theatres, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, and dancing halls. So far as amusements are concerned. we are exceedingly fond of one another’s company. Do young gentlemen ever spend a quiet evening at home, we do no’ say with Scott or Dickens, but with tiie latest novel of the Freudian school ? Have young ladies, able to be whirled to a palais de danse any night of the week, ever the time to think of balls in the manner of the young ladies of the Jane Austen period ? To-day we pay one another the compliment of dancing, eating, drinking, and generally amusing ourselves together. One consequence is the remarkable amount of attention given to music and the drama in modern London. People not only go te the play, but they also talk about it. There is more dramatic criticism rampant in London than ever before, while there has developed in our midst a perfect plague of c.'-ncertroom chatter. Our social habits have changed.