THIRSTY BUTTERFLIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16987, 10 March 1923, Page 12

THIRSTY BUTTERFLIES.

THE MODERN GIRL AND ALCOHOL. Recently Dr Agnes Savill indicted the society girl of drinking too many cocktails. Philip Page enlarges in the

“Sunday Chronicle.” The trouble with the modern girl is that spending nearly every night of her life in night club surroundings she takes alcohol too often and in increasing quantities just to keep herself going. Whereas the young girl of a past generation went to a few private dances in the season and to a few hunt balls in the winter months, her successor thinks a night wasted if a largo portion of it has not been accompanied by the drone and moan of the preposterous saxophone. The society gjrl of the seventies and eighties had half a glass of champagne during supper, or perhaps some claretdiluted to a pa.le amethyst colour. Miss 1922 will drink at least half a bottle of champagne every night of her life, and she knows as much about wine, too. as her father or her brother. OCCKTAIL CO NNOISSEU R S. *• 1 can't stand 1911, though the 1900 is drinkable. “ Went to Giro’s last night with So-and-So, and ho gave me a non-vintage wine; mean old devil 1” “Don't touch Lord Somethin g-or--otiler’s whisky; it tastes like petrol.” These are common phrases on the carmined lips of children barely out of the schoolroom. She will have a brandy and soda next morning, too, to pull herself together. And in the afternoon she will pay a visit to the bachelor chambers of some favoured swain and have a whisky and soda or two, or three. Then wine for dinner, and on to a dance or a club, where are programme of the night before is repeated. Most insidious of nil are the cocktails dear above a-11 drinks to the modem feminine palate. They look so pretty most of them. There is the golden coloured “ Bronx.” with its orange flavour; the pink “Clover Club.” wjth its covering of creamy foam : the dry “ Martini ” or “ Manhattan.” “ Such fun. you know, sucking the preserved cherry on a splinter of matchwood.” And, of course, Billy or Harry, of the cocktail bar at ! s. can concoct a new specimen at any moment and flatter a, girl customer by calling it after her. FEMALE TOPERS. Now, I would not call these girls drunkards. They are often excited with drink, though rarely completely under its influence. They are the female counterparts of the club toper. They are “ Topettes.’

When remonstrated with, a difficult and tactle-ss business at all times, they fall back on the freedom” formula and talk as glibly about woman’s right to drink as the hatchet brandisher of the far-off suffragette days talked of her right to vote. Truly all things may be lawful, but they may not always be expedient. There are objections other than aesthetic and possibly a man who prefers not to fox trot- with a maiden whose breath is tainted with mixed drinks and whose hair reeks of tobacco smoke is hypocritical in these enlightened days. But what of the effect, on the girl herself? Has woman freed herself only to destroy herself ?