GERMAN DIVINES ATTACK CHILDREN'S PARTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12213, 7 March 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

GERMAN DIVINES ATTACK CHILDREN'S PARTIES.

Berlin, January 17.— strong agitation has begun in Germany against children's parties. Both the Catholic and Protestant clergy are denouncing the sort of parties which have been introduced from England and the United States, advocating a return to Puritan simplicity. Children's parties are becoming so elaborate and expensive that even in Court circles protests are raised Then the children's balls are said to corrupt children. A leading society woman of Berlin says : —" I have heard remarks, from girls at children s balls about the dersses of rivals and le bearing of boys which amazed me. Children are taught the wrong side of the world at these balk and cease to be children At a children's party with any pretension to elegance wine is always served to mere children, who go home semi-intoxicated and acquire a taste for strong drink." German children of the better classes especially in the cities, and of the lower classes, too, are deteriorating in a way that is attracting wide attention. The criminal statistics of the large towns show that juvenile offenders are growing more numerous