THE NEW WOMAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1921, Page 3

THE NEW WOMAN.

INDICTMENTS IN BRITAIN. LIBERTY BECOMING LICENSE. London, Sept. 2. It is a sign of the times when a sober and most conservative journal like the Daily Telegraph is daily devoting two columns to the question of the “new woman.’’ Prominent publicists are penning indictments stating that the new type of woman has kicked over the traces in her determination to taste fresh experiences and to discover how far her new-found independence will carry her, and that site is overdressed, adorably silly, and is playing with her whole energies “the man attracting game.”

Father Bernard Caughan declares that the new aggressive type has ceased to be a lady, and has not yet become a gentleman. He is most anxious about her virtue, when she openly declares that there are insufficient men as husbands and that therefore she must have men as lovers.

He says that the new type is much in evidence at prize fights, divorce courts, and massage resorts. She has even less in her than on her.

The Pope, in his recent encyclical, declared that many women, of every age and rank, were seized with a mad desire to please, and did not realise how insane were the fashions, which displeased decent persons and offended God, as well as causing discontent. Women appeared publicly in apparel from which they would once have shrunk as repugnant to Christian decency. Even to the eucharistic table they wore trappings suggestive of shameful passions.

The night clubs are featuring pyjama and nightdress balls, which are attended by notorious West End people of fashion. Chorus girls and typists attired in nightdresses are stated to be features of the dancing season which is just commencing, the facilities for dancing being a mere cloak for more sinister purposes, including the sale of drugs, sly grog trade, and sometimes the blackmail of daring people of wealth who visit night clubs to see the sights of the underworld.