DAMAGED GOODS

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 February 1920, Page 6

DAMAGED GOODS

%T THE OPERA HOUSE,

When your prospective son-.in-fl*\?| asks for your daughter's hand lias it ever dawned on you to ask in addition to what his financial position is, whether he can give a clean bill of health? ' Had the father of Mrs Dupont done this the daughter whom he loved would not have had to face the shame and horror which was her position and her babe would not have lain at death's door in the throes of the vilest of all diseases. This is the terrible point emphasised in "Damaged Goods" shown at Pollard's to men only last evening. Mother Grundy has reigned for many years and thanks greatly vo the machinations of that mythical lady hundreds of innocent little babes have been born into the world —aye, and in this: fair land of ours, with the marks of the vilest disease that has ever affected mankind upon them Verily the iniquities of the fathers have been visited upon them. It is now realised by medical men and social workers_ that the ravages of venerial disease which Mrs. Grundy has so strenuously cried to keep hidden from her flock should be dealt with unfilinchingly and with the glov es off. Their can be no hesitation in saying that had the terrible lesson conveyed in "Damaged Goods." been learnt by the previous generation, men, women and litt.o children, twisted into grotesque human shapes, afraid as soon as they can understand —if ever they do> for many of them are idiots—to look their feilow s in the faces, would not now be living a life in which the only pleasure they look forward to is death. Had Mrs. Grundy's rage been defied men and women in this Dominion would have escaped the vilest of all diseases. Goods" is not a picture of the sloppy, sentimental type so beloved by many servant girls and wishy washy youths but a terrible indictment of the human race. It depicts in a most graphic form the terrible price a. man, his innocent wife and little one had to pay as the result of his youthful folly. Jt is not overdrawn —we all know that the very facts fire repeated time and again in New 'Zealand, but if 'the dramatization of '"Damaged Goods" does not succeed in warning every man, woman and child in the country. The story, though so powerful and telling is a simple one. A college youth showing his best to gain distinction in scholastic attainments is inveigled by a pretty, innocent looking, smiling face, with the result that he finds himself in the throes of the awful disease. A doctor of repute shows him the terrible consequences of marriage and he is sickened at the sight.-; he saw in the hospital. He is warned that it would a criminal act to marry under two years time ,but goes«to a quack who guarantees to cure him in three months. He takes the hitter's advice and is married. A. child is born and it bears the marks of the f ttliija>s .#l.'. This is really the sum total of the plot but the message it conveys is a direct one; there is no innuendo—it is a straight out story, plain to the most unintelligent. Every minister of religion, and social worker, in fact every man and wornan on the Coast should see the picture and, if the terrible lesson it conveys sinks into the minds of the community we shall se> a, day dawn when New Zealand will be free from the tentacles of venereal disease. Arrangements have been made to screen the picture again on Monday.