GIRLS AND COCKTAILS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19809, 2 December 1927, Page 14

GIRLS AND COCKTAILS.

DIVERSE LONDON VIEWS. " PASSING WHIM OF FASHION." Social workers are not in agreement with tho observations regarding the spread of the cocktail habit among girls made by tho Rev. W. Snapcott. In a speech at Leamington, says a London paper, Mr. Shapcott told of a young woman of 17 who boasted of having drunk 40 cocktails a day without turning a hair, and Prebendary Carlile, speaking at the same meeting, declared that drinking 'among women was "greatly on the increase. " "That any girl could drink 40 cocktails in a day without turning a hair is, of course, on tho face of it, ridiculous," was tho comment of a West End doctor. "I think, however, that they drink more cocktails, far more, thati are, perhaps, good for them. That they live for cocktail drinking and the like is rather an overdrawn estimate in which, I fear, temperance fanatics indulge.'" "These tall cocktail stones mako me lust a little tired," the warden of a girls' noatel in London said "It may be true that a certain type of girl—the rich type with no particular object in life—drinks a great irfany cocktails. It is certainly not true of the thousands of decent, hardworking girls." "I do not think tho speaker was quite correct in striking such a pessimistic note." said Miss A. E. Slat, president of the British Women's Total Abstinence Union "Certainly a particular class of young people is suffering from a craze for cocktails, but it is only a passing whim of fashion." ,

Prebendary Car'ile stated tht his experience was that drinking among women was increasing. "I call upon Englishwomen," ho said, "to take tin the cudgels and purge their sex of this growimr evil. I have seen pnhlichouses so crowded with women that there is no room for men. . On the other hand, it is rather curious to note that intemperance among mon is on the decrease."