DECLINE OF MORALS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 24 July 1925, Page 6

DECLINE OF MORALS.

IMMODESTY AND GAMBLING AUCfKLiAND OLEiRIO’S DENUNOIATOIN.

Unhealthy tendencies among the youth of to-day received attention from Canon Uercival J a mes, while pieaclung in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Auckland, on Sunday evening. He spoke especially ot immodesty in dress, both on the street and at the beaches, oS the salacious trend of modem. fiction and pictures, and of bridge playing for money among girls. “A disclosure 1 made' to the Mothers;’ Union,” said the canon, ‘‘has been reported in the public pres*. lam very glad, it has been published. 1 was speaking of facts which had come to my own knowledge, and which 1 had investigated with parents, some ol whom are listening to me now, 'and I have received a mass of letters which show, that many share the estimate which I have formed about what is going on among the children. ’ Is there not too much reason to fear immorality below the surface when we all see immodesty stalking abroad naked and unashamed in the light of day? Modesty an Unpopular Word.

Modesty used to b© thought the crown and glory of womanhood. It is an unpopular word to-day. Look at the pictures of women in the magazines and illustrated papers. A large proportion of them are immodest -in dress or attitude, and that is apparently the only reason lor publishing them. The public wants them, and gets what it wants. “Again, there are recurrent protests against immodesty in dress, but the evil seines to be increasing. Decent people who live near popular bathing beaches tell us they dislike to' leave their homes or to let their children go out om Sunday in the summer. Boys and girls - , young men and young women, as near to complete nudity as they can be without rendering themselves liable to prosecution, spend the whole day, not in the water, but in spouting about and lying about together. Modesty is the priceless possession of boy and girl, of man and maid. If they are robbed of their beautiful natural reserve a great safeguard is gone. This is a matter for women. The united action _of the head mistresses of the great girls' secondary schools in Auckland could do much to remedy this.” Injurious Books and Pictures.

A great pare- pt* modern fiction ought, never to nncl its way into tne hands of children, continued Canon James. The main danger was not from books actually obscene and salacious, butfrom the greater number books just “on the line,” which couid not be condemned a>s utterly foul, but which smudged with their coarse lingers the sacred things of love and «ix and marriage. They showed human nature at its very worst. There was some rather wild talk about motion pictures at present. Some, of course, were poisonous, and he was glad the protests against indecent picture post era seemed likely to be effective. It was said that the films themselves were not always so bad as the posters would indicate. Whiat a commentary upon popular taste! The advertisement must be more 'attractively suggestive than the picture itself, hut the main objection bo the picture show was that it was mostly sheer rubbish. While pictures remained on their present plane it was for parents to guard their children against any pernicious influences. Playing for Money.

There wa* a neither thing to which Gan on James said he wished to direct attention : that in Auckland .it had become the fashionable thing for girls to play bridge for money. Not long ago a mother gave a birthday present to girl who was just leaving school. It was a “bridge purse” in which to put her winnings and from which to pay her losses at bridge. In another, case a young giirl had been forbidden by her parents to play for money, but the mother now “.aid this prohibition must be ‘removed, “because if she does not play for money she cannot have a good time.” It was said that young people could not even play a round of golf unless there was a stake upon it.