ENVIOUS CRITICS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2328, 23 December 1925, Page 4

ENVIOUS CRITICS

MODERN YOUTH DEFENDED. Lady Eleanor Smith, daughter of Lord Birkenhead, writing in English Life, says that the clothes of to-day are the most sensible, graceful, and comfortable since the times of the ancient Greeks, and that the shingled heads are the neatest, tidiest, and healthiest heads in existence. In the course of her article she says: "A far greater liberty is now permitted boys and girls not only of action but of speech. Frankness where hitherto there was deceit, fearlessness where there was cringing humility, and probably veiled dislike. This freedom is post-war; that it is harmless has yet to be proved. If a young man and a girl dine, and dance, and spend the evening together, where a girl would have been once hopelessly compromisd, it is now thought the most natural thing in the world. Only a few years ago a marriage was contracted by people still addressing themselves as Mr. Brown and Miss Jones. What could they know of each other ?”

Of the modern girls’ clothes, Lady Eleanor says: “Gone, we hope for ever, are the cumbersome and exaggerated crinolines of 1860 the hideous, clumsy bustles the high, tight collars the distorting fence-like stays enormous unwieldy hats, and cramped skirts. Gone are the huge puffed-out piles of hair once so very chic and fashionable. As for modern frocks, there is a very good reason for their shortness. It is impossible to play games in unsuitable clothes, and whatever may bo said of the flapper, her prowess as an athlete is undeniable.”

Lady Eleanor concludes with an expression of the belief that the selfappointed critics of modern youth are actuated by jealousy that their own young days can never be recaptured.