“CURSE” OF DANCING.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17985, 2 April 1930, Page 10

“CURSE” OF DANCING.

NEW RIVAL TO DRINK. It is the conviction of Mr D. Lleufer Thomas, stipendiary magistrate of Ponty-pridd and the Rhondda Valley, that dancing, and not drink, Is the “ curse ” of his district, says a London paper. Mr Thomas told the Royal Commission on Licensing at Westminster that a considerable change had taken place in the habits of the people in South Wales. Among the things which had contributed very largely to sober habits were motoring and motor-cycling, better housing, and a systematic communial provision of those amenities which were lacking previously, such as welfare institutes, recreation grounds, bowling greens, and playing fields. Mr Thomas put down a great deal of the crime committed in his area to drink. On the whole, however, drink had ceased to be tlie main cause of domestic infelicity, and, as a sign of the improved morals of the .inhabitants, Mr Thomas toid the Commission that during the whole week of the National Eisteddfod at Treorchy in 1928 there was an average daily attendance of 15,000 to 20,000, and yet not a single case of drunkenness or disorderly behaviour was icported. Mr Thomas declared that love of dancing was a cause of modem domestic discord. “in fact,” he added, “ dancing and its concomitants, and not drink, are the present-day curse of my district.”