MODERN FREEDOM.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4719, 2 July 1924, Page 4

MODERN FREEDOM.

THE PBESENT-DAY GIBE. IS SHE AN IMPROVEMENT ’ Growing older means lhat you can see a long way back and compare the distance, and what it held, with the present-day track, and what it holds. Most of us, when we look over on l ' shoulders, admire the view r —as presumably the walrus did before the vanishing of the oysters—and feel that things are not what they were or should be. Personally, I think that our chief fault is our enormous, though often good-natured and unconscious, vulgarity (writes Mrs W. K. Cl’fford, the brilliant writer and dramatist). If a few good, sound virtues had not been added life would be unbearable. 'Here is an instance . the papers announce 1 that a ball is to be given with a string of fashionable patronesses, duly advertised, of course, “in support of the opera. ’ Heaven oil earth ! Does the opera, the opera that Beecham to his lasting honour and glory has given us, need supporting by drawing together a crowd of frivolous and empty-headed men and women, who must needs dance to the braying of a-band ? Put why have we become so vulgar ? Is it,lack of direction ? Or is it the direction of a few strong personalitltes of a regrettable variety, and the instinctive neglect to listen to the bidding of a less dominant Kind ? For, if we come to think of it, everything, for good or ill, is the result of leadership. All things have begun with a personality strong enough to choose the road, and take up the reins, handing them on latc>to a few, till the masses, fascinated or hypnotised, have seized them. This has been, and is, the history of every great movement, from a religion to a battlefield—from a fashionable craze to the mania for musical comedy of inane and vulgar sort.

The public taste was probably captured by some tuneful and active spirit of a lower order, and from small beginnings was begun the deterioration of the musical stage — from Gilbert and Sullivan to (say, just for the sake of tin illustration) “The Bing Boys’ l or “As You Were” or “Afgar”—al? highly successful, full of cleverness and melody, I allow; but compare them with the charm, the finish, and absolute freedom from vulgarity and offence of. the opera,s of thirty years ago that once more for a brief period are delighting London. Think of the fairies in “lolanthe” — how easy it would be to fall in love with them all (as the peers did) — and then think of the damsels with bare backs, bare legs (often inferior legs), and bare feet who disport themselves in more modern concoctions. Do people fall in love with them ? The newspapers tell us that they do : but usually not for very long, as the Law Courts testify. And compare the talk and jokes in these modern plays with the wit, the neatness and adroitness, anad absence of coarseness in Gilbert’s dialogue, and you will

begin to think that the world might turn backward with advantage. It has been wonderful lately to -Stee the audiences at the Princes rheatie immense audiences that had rushed to take seats. • hi every box were a couple of ciders, who obviously remembered, with a group of young people, obviously enjoying themselves, applauding and laughing: the delicious sound of young fresh laughter as well as the deeper note of the oldsters filled the place, the applause was deafening, and there was no denying encores, for old and young insisted. ■ Now. all this is significant. It shows that human nature is as healthy and as ready for the best as over it was, if it is only given a chance ; and the chance lies in what is put before it. As to fashion—l spoke of leadership just now. Why doesn’t some woman, young, light-hearted, and magnetic, arise and clothe herself reasonably as well as beautiful ? If the leader had it in her to compel, the mass ->f women would follow her. Have you ever walked up Bond Street behind the young women of the present day, or watched them trip into a theatre ? Smart shoes with high heels, very thin stockings, and a skimpy, very short bit of skirt with their two sticklike legs, and the bodies plumped out with cloth or fur above, they look like' birds hopping along ; if they turn am* show a. bit of bare chest it reminds you of the smooth feathers on the breast of a bird. Queer creatures, I often think to myself. Amusing, light-hearted, full of good intentions (you feel that), it is difficult to take them seriously ; and yet they abound in cleverness, for in these days they have been given initiative and freedom —enough and too much—to bring out their individualities; but their ' cleverness is often of as much use to them as if it wore locked up in a casket. These present-day girls, with their abounding courage, their seeking after the mysteries, tlieir fishing in the deep waters of life —and often finding only Dead Sea fruit—how one could love them ; but one just laughs with them, and aches for them, and wants to say. “Go home, dears, and cover your beautiful selves a little more, back and front, top and bottom, and think a bit, and turn out of your heart and soul, and away from your doing, all those things that somehow —you don’t know why—you instinctively shrink from at fiifst, and only take on with because you are curious, or it seems plucky, or you have nothing else to do.” For instincts are a good deal like children; they have their innocence and a strange wisdom, and though, like children, they may have to be silenced, they are often right. And in looking back on the girls of my day, and seeing the girls of this, 1 cannot help feeling we have —they h a ve—made mistakes, but that these present-day girls are a vast improvement ; if sometimes their manners are not so good their generosities and capacities are larger, and they have learnt to think, and that is the first step towards being of use to the world.