THE COCKTAIL CANARD

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 932, 27 March 1930, Page 8

THE COCKTAIL CANARD

ALBAN L is about the last place from which it might be imagined that the morals and conduct of Auckland could he accurately observed; yet from Albany, as represented by Mrs. I. Phillips, delegate from that centre to the bi-annual council meeting of the Auckland Provincial Federation of Women’s Institutes, comes the latest denunciation of the younger generation. Mrs. Phillips, claiming an intimate knowledge of her subject, asserts that it is impossible to travel on the harbour ferry between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., or to visit any of the beaches after cabaret hours, without seeing girls lying drunk. Few people of mature years make a habit of patrolling beaches after cabaret hours, and it is difficult to imagine that Mrs. Phillips has any reliable foundation for these statements. As a matter of fact, the statement that girls can be seen drunk on the harbour ferry has already been refuted by a ferry official of 30 years’ experience. The beaches can be left to themselves—and Mrs. Phillips. Just as there is always a certain number of persons who make it their business to examine and criticise the morals, manners, and personal conduct of their fellow-citizens, there is always a certain number of subjects who indulge to excess in both liquor and other things. Foolish girls do sometimes take too many cocktails. There can be no disputing that; but few of them make it a regular practice. The trim and eager young dancing girl of today is usually a very wise young person who cares far too much for her figure and complexion to be recklessly indulgent. Because there are occasional instances to the contrary, it is unfair to brand all girls as cocktail drinkers or debauchees. The effect of such injudicious statements is to give the impression that Auckland girls as a whole are reckless, loose and indiscreet. Nothing could he further from the fact. Responsible women who undoubtedly have far better opportunities of •xamining social tendencies than Mrs. Phillips has at Albany, have been quick to rally in defence of the girl of today. Miss London, principal of the Epsom Girls’ Grammar School, and Miss M. Sinclair, president of the Presbyterian Girls’ Bible Class Union, both of whom move among young girls of widely different tastes from the few who mig'ht be included in Mrs. Phillips’s criticism, do not hesitate to say that her statements appear to be an exaggeration. Miss Loudon makes a much more, accurate survey when she cites the outdoor interests of the modern girl as evidence of her temperate and healthy outlook. No doubt every generation of young women has been denounced in its day, but the repetition tends to become wearisome. Mrs. Phillips, from her outpost at Albany, seems to picture Auckland as a centre of viciousness and sin, whereas in reality there is a strong vein of spiritual sincerity beneath the City’s outward show of activity and pleasure.