Great Falls tribune., 1922-04-15

| NcW 4UIh OAtys <1pIu 4Os--0St luoSS
who bemoan the bold, bad ways Of the
modern fapper take heart. In a few
more years, she will be enduring her
share of grief and envy as an even
wilder generation flaps daringly before
her outraged vision. Twas ever thus.
History shows that every age has had
it's recalcitrant young people who have
rebelled against the discipline of their
elders and caused great anguish to the
public spirited.
Take few samples Of the loud la
ments on the subject of flapping re-
Gently apeparing in our daily newspa-
pers and compare them with those
written at various periods in the past
| (plenty are to be found in the
archives of our libraries) and you will
at once be struck by their uncanny
similarity. Listen to this:
The girl Of the period is creature
who dies her hair aud paints her face
as the first articles of her personal
religion; whose sole idea Of life is
plenty of fun and luxury; and whose
dress is the object of such thought and
intellect as she possesses. The
girl Of the period has done away with
such moral muffishness as consider
alton for others, or regard for coun-
sci or rebuke. /. y. If sensible fash
ion lifts gown out Of the mud, she
raises hers midway to her knee. :.
She talks slang as glibly as man, and
by preference leads the conversation to
doubtful subjects
| If it were not for the one word
| midway" one would scarcely guess
that this vitriolic criticism was penned
| BY Mrs e. Lynn Linton, once popular
English novelist, as early as 1868. We
are SO accustomed to having the late
war blamed for all the giddy behavior
OF the present that it is something Of a
shock to discover that the flappers Of
other eras were also considered hope
lessly wayward. As a matter Of fact,
there has probably never been year
since the days Of Adam and Eve when
some querulous voice has not been
| lifted up against the needless dissipa-
tions Of youth.
ing several decades ago on the way
girls dressed to attract attention,
added philosophically:
| But has not, in every epoch, the
raceold instinct of the female to be-
| deck her body so as to attract the
male, through whom alone she can
achieve her destiny, led to extremes.
extravagances. even vulgarities? And
doubtless every savage tribe harbors
some shameless mink, who, by her dar-
ing manner of putting on or taking off
| single bead, brings down on her head
| the vials of wrath of the older women,
who wonder. what her mother can be
thinking Of"
Bad Girls Of the Eighties
Even the prim eighties were not suf-
| ficiently prim to satisfy many of the
good citizens Of the period. Accord
| ing to Mrs. John Sherwood's Man
ners and Social Usages" (1SS4) OBJ
| servers Of society in New York and
Washington in those days found it to
ton, bad manners and gossip, back
,, biting, divorce and slander."
Far back in 1919, apparently. con
ditions were just as bad. In this year
| we find Miss Emma Willard making an
| address to the public, particularly
the members Of the legislature Of New
York. in which she beseeches that
body to contribute some instant means
for educating the young females of the
state "as possible panacea for the
frivolity of the time"
Not content with doing nothing to
promote their country's welfare she
declared, like pampered children. they
revel in its prosperity and scatter it
to the winds with wanton profuson,
and, still worse, they emprison it's
source by diffusing contempt for
useful labor. To court Pleasure is
their business; within her temple, in
defiance of the laws of God and man
they have erected the idol of Fashion.
and upon her altar they sacrifice with
shameless rites whatever is sacred to
virtue or religion"
Miss Janet Richards. lecturer. re-
Gently charged that good breeding"
seems to be a thing Of the past, and
one can only infer that mothers no
longer take the trouble to instill into