SOME MODERN HABITS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21033, 23 May 1930, Page 2

SOME MODERN HABITS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I read with interest the leading article in your issue of the 17th inst, on “ Behaviour,” and I appreciated the candid comments on the hip-pocket habit and the drinking of cocktails among our young girls. 1 feel sure that a great many of the older members of society view with deep concern the conduct of the younger generation in this matter of drinking. To many mothers of this twentieth century it is a perplexing problem, and we ask—why is it that our young men and maidens cannot now enjoy an evening dance without the menace of the wineglass? No one now denies the prevailing habit of the drinking of cocktails by young girls,_ and it is, I fear, an open secret that drink is often brought and offered to young girls by men in motor cars at cabaret oarties,. etc. The question comes to us as mothers—what can be done to stem the tide of habit? We would be the last to forbid them their happy associations or _ their innocent pleasures, yet in these drinking habits we see the ruin of pure and happy "irlhood and we ask what kind of wives and mothers are these girls to make in later life. You ask if the twentieth century mother favours cocktails and kewpie parties. I wish I could reply in the negative, but I with shame confess that while many of us strongly disapprove of these things, too many mothers are themselves taking spirits and drinking in hotels in a way never before known in our good land. Is it any wonder that to some of us it is indeed a problem? If this state of things is a menace to the well-being of our nation, then it is time we cast in our lot with those who claim that our country would be better without alcohol. As a mother I see no other way out of the difficulty, as with time the habit of drinking will grow and strengthen in girls and women alike, and then I fear we will indeed, as a nation, reap what we have solved.—l am, etc.. A Mother.