DECAY OF MANNERS.

Shannon News, 12 August 1927, Page 3

DECAY OF MANNERS.

' DEBATE IN LONDON. LADY RHONDDA AND MR ST. J. ERVINE. LONDON, June 1. Some amusing views were exchanged «t the School of Economics when Lady Rhondda and Mr. St. John Eryine, with Miss Edith' Evans in the chair, argued the point, "Arc women fit companion* for men?" The debate was one of the lectures and counter-lectures arranged in aid of the King Edward's Hospital Fund. Mr Ervine declared that ever since women had been enfranchised, men s manners had gone to pieces. Until women began to smoke no man ever dreamed of smoking in a theatre. (Laughter) Another disgusting habit entirely due to women was the cocktail habit. In his view, cocktails were only lor women and Americans. (lighter). The great days of the English theatre were those when women wery allowed neither in the auditorium nor on the stage. The moment women were admitted Indecency became _ rampant. The Restoration drama coincided with the advent of women on the stage, and when they were first seen there they were hissed by the indignant and virtuous men. (Laughter). When women went into the' audience tragedy _ was abolished from the stage. The simple reason was that women wanted to see something at which they could giggC When Shakespeare was piodueed at theOld Vie, and elsewhere,' the men predominated in the queues, but when a lecherous play was given anywhere it was the wonicr. who thronged there. (Laughter). What men were entitled to demand of women was comradeship They, must no longer trade on their sex, which was what they always did, but what men never did —(laughter)— and they must be prepared to take their stand with men on terms of real'friendship and equality. It was a foul he to .-ay that women were finer and more creatures than num. Let them "o to the Zoo, and there they would see that the male was always the more beautiful animal of the species. (Laughter). Women had to realise that ni beauty of mind, body and character men were their superiors. (Laughter). Man was a creature full of romance and with a burning desire for adventure. ' He aspired to contend with danger and death, and it Avas the Avoman who lured him into the cities, which he hated, because she herself loved lite and gaiety. What she said Avas, "Come and be comfortable," (Laughter). It was because Avomcn liked crowds, and doing the same things as other women did in such a convention-ridden way that the world was getting into such a pitiful plight. MEN'S TASTES IN THEATRES. Lady Rhondda retorted with the question, ''Are men fit companions for avomon'?" (Laughter). Like all men, Mr Ervine blamed women for everything, t'erhaps his most amazing suggestion was that the decadence of the drama was due to them. In theatrical matters the tastes of nine men out of ten Avere simply deplorable. (Laughter). Whenever women tried to get theatre parties together they always said: "We shall have to go "to a musical comedy; the men will be bored if we go to anything dsc." (Laughter). As to the statement that the abolition of tragedy was due to women, she had often thought that perhaps the reason Avhy there Avas such an enormous number of murders and suicides in Shakespeare was because he had' to appeal to the bloodthirsty tastes of his masculine audiences. (Laughter). To say that no man ever traded on his sex Avas a magnificent impertinence. The truth of the matter Avas that the subject of the debate had been worded wrongly. Seeing that we Avere now living under a democracy, the basic fact of which Avas that one had to abide bv the majority rule, it Avas a gross impertinence'for the men, as the minority, to ask whether the majority Avere fit to be their companions. (Laughter). She admitted that men did succeed "fairly well" in their endeavours tc be fit companion's, but their one noticeable and .serious draAvback, especially in Englishmen, was that they could not talk or listen to a Avoman's "shop." On the other hand, one of the salient qin litics of women was their ability to take an intelligent and sympathetic interest in men's "shop." Men could often be stimulating and amusing, but they had different types of humour, and thus they had to study their market, or in other words, first choose the women to whom their humour appealed. THE GIFT OF CURIOSITY. Miss Evans, in closing the debate, touched on the suggestion that Avomen predominated in the queues at unpleasant plays. At the end of one of Mr Bernard Shaw's Avorks there was the sentence, "God gave one great gift to j women —curiosity." (Laughter). So they went with open, expectant eyes to I hear of these things of the great world | which weie unknown to men, hut Avell I known to women. (Laughter).