THIRSTY WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1930, Page 8

THIRSTY WOMEN.

LURE OF COCKTAILS. SWEEPING ALLEGATIONS. "ALARMING SPREAD OF HABIT." - VIEWS OF PUBLIC WOMEN. A warning tliat the drinking of intoxi- • eating liquor by young women was increasing so alarmingly that it was in danger of "sapping the very foundations of the country," was 'issued by Mrs. I. Phillips, a delegate from the Albany Women's Institute, at. the bi-annual meeting of the Auckland Provincial Federation of Women's Institutes yesterday. The meeting carried a remit from the Albany Institute to the .effect that women and girls should be pt exhibited from drinking intoxicating liquor in public places. "I have seen young girls in a state of intoxication on the beaches after the cabarets have closed, and even in bro'ad daylight on the i'acecoar9e«," said Mrs. Phillips. "The drink hat.it crept in during the war, and it. was thought that it was only a' passing' phase which would disappear as soon as the strain . of those years was ove;\ Instead, it has grown to alarming proportions, and it is now in crave danger of sapping'the very foundations of our country. ' It has grown to the "detriment of our womanhood and to the peril of our children. Social ' functions are now considered' *tam>e unless cocktails are provided. _ Those who are leading thoughtless lives do not think of the desolate homes and /the broken-hearted parents' or of the sweet young girls just budding into womanhood, whom they sweep off their feet and carry into the maelstrom of dis- ' sipation, with- which goes a loss of modesty, eelf-rcspect and morality."

"Unfit to Become Mothers. Tie problem,' said Mrs; Phillips, was one which many upright men and women had been fighting for years. 'These women ,and girls who were drinking , were .unfit to ' become the mothers; of New Zealand's future citizens. If they could not give up the gay lives they had been living, what was to be-ome of the oreat nation of which women were said to be the, bulwark? Proof of the increase of the menace could be seen in the welfare homes, of which, a-few years ago, one had not heard, but which were now 'filled with little' Uncared-for children. ' • - ' -- ■ ■ "It is time we, got; our backs •to the wall'and'did something to combat this • evil and awaken the public mind to the danger we are in," declared Mrs., Phillips. *We must (Stifle the untrue parrot-cry V 'of 'All is well with our girls/' I appeal! to*y° u to help in combating this evil , ■ for the sake of : humanity, eo that we • May not have our country: populated Vith a race of degenerates." A copy of the Albany Institute's remit will be forwarded'to the National-Coun-cil of' Women.