HASTY CONDEMNATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3756, 9 March 1926, Page 4

HASTY CONDEMNATION.

CRITICISM OF YOUTH. A CLERGYMAN’S VIEWS. AUCKLAND, March 2. “We are too prone to condemD in a wholesale manner,” said tho Rev. R. G. Coats, in addressing the Auckland Council of Christian Congregations od tho subject of present-day amusements. Mr Chats <Jprelt upon various amusements indulged in by the modern youth and declared that in every instance there was a great amount of exaggeration by those who did not know the fact s of the cases they Criticised. “There have been shrieks and veils about Dixieland, and we have been tola all about the terrible things that happen there and what goes on in alleged upstair rooms. I can only say it is all a huge fabrication. I have been there not once but often, and not once have 1 seen anything that is alleged to have taken place. The establishment is carefully managed and no one could find any fault with what goeg on. I say this after having made it my business to inquire into many things on the spot which others have not. had an opportunity of doing. “Just because the old method of dancing has changed we condemn the whole thing as bad. The only things wrong to-day to my mind are the absolute collapse of the chaperonage system and the dancing of two partners together all night. I recognise I am on thorny ground in. referring to dancing, but I am not afraid of the thorns. I love dancing myself, although I cannot say I sm very much taken with the modern jazz. People have made some terribly exaggerated statements about Auckland’s dance halls. I have gone round various halls and tried to find out if such things went on, but. I have absolutely failed. I am telling the honest truth, and I think we should be careful to sav nothing we cannot substantiate fully. ‘Card playing is a knotty point with old fogies,” continued Mr Coats' “but if there is one thing I like it is a game of bridge. I have never gambled in my life and there is no need to do so at oards. We know things are not what thoy should be, for pur young people are breaking away from the good old rules that bound many of us in the past. “I am going to say this: It is not the result of amusements, which I consider .perfectly innocent. The whole trouble can bo traced to two things—the breakdown of the Sunday observance, oaused no doubt through the present rapid and cheap means of locomotion, and the present-day lack of home control. Many parents are afraid to do all they shoula, because their children could—and do—exercise their independence and walk out to support themselves.”