HEP FLASKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19057, 20 July 1927, Page 14

HEP FLASKS.

--—♦ -.. DRUNKEN GIRLS AT DANCES

SYDNEY LEGISLATION MOOTED. (rBOM OTO OWX CORBESPOSDEKT.) SYDNEY, July 6. It is a coincidence that almost at the same time that the Eev. Lawson March, an Auckland cleric, was directing attention to the "hip-flask.habit" among young men and girls at dances in New Zealand, police and Ministerial officials were issuing warnings to parents and guardians in Sydney about the danger to girls caused by surreptitious drinking at dance halls. That undoubtedly the habit is widespread in this city , is admitted, and there has been much concern in official circles in regard to the evil which those in a position to know declare is growing to alarming proportions. The law at present forbids the consumption of liquor on premises licensed as places of entertainment, except where special permission has been granted. But one high police official with knowledge of what goes on in these places, declared that certain dance halls in the metropolitan area were a menace to Sydney's womanhood because of the drink distributed there. "It is to the discredit of many of the young men of to-day," he said, "that instead of attempting to stop his kind of thing, they encourage it among their girl friends. So bad have the names of two or three well-known dancing places become that the decent girls of the community have ceased going there." This official pointed out that those places where intoxicating liquors were sold surreptitiously to visitors were raided whenever opportunity offered. The police, however, he said) had no control over those young men and women who carried supplies of strong liquors in their pockets and in handbags. "The pocket flask," he declared, ''is the greatest danger of all. I have had ample opportuinty of visiting the Sydney resorts, and unhesitatingly say that the danger is a very grave one and a very real one. Hardly a public dance is held without young women having to be assisted home. If our young women are to be saved from the evils of intemperance, it is clear that prompt measures should be takf.n by the Government to pass the necessary legislation to enable the police to act in a# efficient manner. The dangers of this growing habit have frequently been brought under our notice, but, in the absence of legislation, our efforts to put it down have been -tile.- The records of the Courts show that many a girl has attributed her downfall to a first false step brought about by consuming liq nor at a" dance hall. The difficulty with which the police are faced is that'they, can take aetion only when those who are carrying on the reprehensible practice of surreptihous drinking overstep the mark of deC( s£nwhile,- stirred hy the statements that have been made, the Chief Secretary in the State Government (Mr Work Gosling) has initiated proceedings for infringement of the law by Ssons who take liquor to places of Krtainment. The Minister declared Sat he was determined to do all in

brigade" from making drinking dens of the dance halls. Curiously, while responsible people assert that the habit is on the increase in Sydney, people in similar positions in Melbourne are certain tbat the habit is on the wane. Probably the explanation is that there the habit came into popularity before it did' in Sydney, and has now shed its glamour. Of perhaps it is due to the action of the dance-Kail proprietors themselves, who say that they have men. engaged to search for suspicious bulges in men dancers' hippockets.