‘UNHEALTHY TENDENCIES.

Shannon News, 4 August 1925, Page 3

‘UNHEALTHY TENDENCIES.

; TIDE YOUTH OF TO-DAY. ! ” I CLERGYMAN’S SCATHING | DENUNCIATION, i j Unhealthy tendencies among the ! youth of to-day received attention j from Cation Percival James in a ser- ■ mon at Auckland recently. He spoke j especially of the immodesty in dress, ; both on the street ami at the coaches, | of the salacious trend of modern fic- • tion and pictures, and of bridge-play-j ing for money among girls. I ‘.‘A disclosure I made to a Mothers’ ! Union,” said the Canon, “has been reported in the public Press. 1 am very glad it has been published. I was speaking of facts which had come to my own knowledge, and which I had investigated with parents, some of whom are listening to me now, and I j have received a mass of letters which I show that many share the estimate which I formed about what is going on among the children. Is there not too much reason to fear immorality below the surface when we all see immodesty stalking abroad, naked and unashamed, in the light of day? Modesty used to be thought the crown and glory of womanhood; it is an unpopular word to-day. Look at the pictures ol’ women in the magazine-*; and illustrated newspapers! A large proportion of them are immodest in dress or attitude', and that is apparently the only reason for. publishing them. The public wants them and gets what it wants. Again, there are recurrent protests against immodesty in dress, but the evil seems to be increasing. Decent people who live near popular bathing beacV.es telf us that they dislike to leave th »r homes or let iheir children go\ ou' on Sunday in summer. Boys and girls, young men and young women, as near to complete nudity as they can be without rendering themselves liable to prosecution, spend the ‘ whole day, not in the water, but in sporting about and tying about together.” The great part of modern fiction ought never to find its way into the hands of children, continued Canon James. The main danger was not from books actually obscene and salacious, but from a greater number of books just “on the line,” which could not be condemned as utterly foul, but which smudged with their coarse fingers the sacred things of love and sex and ma nfiage. They showed human nature at its very worst. There was some rathei wild talk about, mo-

tion pictures a- present.' Sonic, of course, • were ‘poisonous, and he was glad the protests against indecent picture posters seemed likely to be effective. it was said the films themselves were not so bad as the posters w/uld indicate- —what a commentary upon

the popular taste! There' was another thing to which Canon James said he wished to direct attention—-viz., .hat in' Auckland it had” become a fashionable thing for girls to play bridge for money. Not long ago a me tor gave a birtlidav present to a girl just leaving school. It was a “bridge purse” in which to put her winning:-; and from which to pay her losses at bridge.’ In another ease, a young gi. I liad been forbidden by her parents to play for money, but. ;h - mother now said this prohibition must be removed “because if she does not. play for money, she cannot have a good time.” It was said that young people qould net: even play a round of golf except there was a stake upon