"TOPETTES."

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 72, 24 March 1923, Page 26

"TOPETTES."

SOCIETY AND COCKTAILS. BUTTERFLIES' HECTIC LIFE. "Sins of Society" has, as a phrase, a, vague and hackneyed ring about it. ft has been left fora woman, Dr. Agnes Siirill, to come down to more satisfactory or, in this ease, unsatisfactory detaiis, and to toll London eoctiMy who among its members have .-iiincd and how. lSrieily Dr. Agnes enys the modern young girl who has money and leisure to spare drinks too much. This is what the learned doctor says, and it is one of many indictments: "Society life is responsible for deficient sleep and consequent deterioration of the entire nervous system. It encourages the pernicious habit of the toofroquent cigarettes, it encourages the girls to take cocktails and whiskies-and-sodas, which ruin their digestion, impair their livers, and upset the balance of the nervous system, and it encourages them to take rich food», which upset the rhythm of the body." It is only too true. London at the moment is a mass of places where young people congregate about mid-night to dance, talk, have supper, and generally enjoy themselves, writes Philip I'age. There is no intrinsic harm in this. Let us have a ""brighter London," by all means. The night clubs—decent, wellconducted places of the Ciro's or Embassy types—are flying excellent business; nearly every prominent restaurant has its soupur dansant; mammoth fancy dress balls in aid of charity at the Albert Hall or Covent Garden 'take place almost weekly. 2CIGHT CtATB ATMOSPHERE. So much the better up to a point. That point is the maximum of energy that can be expended on this exceedingly strenuous form of amusement without excessive application of artificial stimulus. It is generally realised that the "night club" atmosphere, however well ventilated the room, and however decorous the revellers, is tiring rather than exhilarating? The smell of scent and cigarette smoke the necessity j for conducting any conversation in shouts and screams if it is to be heard ' above the din of the jazz band drummer, ! the late hours, the fatigue of dancing— i all this make*, alcohol inevitable. The troublii with the modern girl is that spending; nearly every night of her ', life in these surroundings ske takes alco- , hol too often and in increasing quanti- ! ties just to keep herself £oing. Whereas the young girl of a past generation went I to a few private dances in the season, • and to a few hunt halls in the winter j months, her successor thinks a night i wasted if a large portion of it has not ' been accompanied by the drone and i moan of the preposterous saxophone. The society girl or the 'seventies and 'eighties had half a glass of champagne during supper or perhaps some claret diluted to a pale amethyst colour. Miss 10g2 will drink at least'half a bottle of champagne every night of her life, and j she knows as much about wine, too, as her father or her brother. | Most insidious of all are the cocktails, j dear above all drinks to the modern i feminine palate. They look so prettymost of them. There is the goldencoloured "Bronx" with its orange flavour, the pink "Clover Club"' with its covering of creamy foam, the dry "Martini ,, or "Manhattan." "Such fun you know, sucking the pre- | served cherry on a splinter of match- i wood!" And, of course, Billy or Harry I of the "cocktail bar, at -—'scan concoct ' a new specimen at any moment and i natter a girl customer by calling it after her. FEMALE TOPERS. Now I would not call these girls drunkards. They are often excited with drink, though rarely completely under its influence. They are the fe- j male counterparts of the' club toper.! They are "Topettes."' j "When remonstrated with, a difficult nnd tactless business at all tiroes, they fall back on the "freedom" formula and talk as glibly about woman's right to I drink as the hatchet brandisher of the I far-off suffragette days talked of her right to vote. Truly all things may be lawful, but they may not always he. expedient. There are objections, other than aesthetic, and- possibly a man who prefers not to foxtrot with a maiden whoso breath is tainted with mixed drinks and whose hair reeks of tohacco smoke is hypercritical in these enlightened days But what of the effect on the girl herself? Pays Dr. Savill indisputably "I have seen some of these p ; r ls after a I few years of society life aged by ten j years and nim.-.dy before (he age of! twenty as worn out and nerve-tired as I if they were forty. The hectic life of continual excitement, the absence of all repose or time for meditation, the perpetual change, the cicrarotte-smokinn- irregular and unhealthy meals—no wonder these girls become the prey of disease. And though the. physical consequences are disastrous, even of erreater importance is the evil effect of this life Upon the character."

Has woman freed herself only to de stroy herself?