Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-04-18

NJ EW YORK CITY, April 12-Let those
VI who bemoan the bold, bad ways of the
modern flapper take heart. In 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
philosophical
| Take a few samples of the loud laments
| on the subject Of Tapping recently appearing
| in our daily newspapers 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 a creature who
| dyes her hair and 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 consideration for
others, or regard for counsel or rebuke. {.
! If sensible fashion lifts a gown out of the
| mud she raises hers midway to her knee. . {.
| She talks slang as glibly a man, and by
| preference leads the conversation to doubtful
subjects
| If it were not for the one word midway i,
one would scarcely guess that this vtriolic
criticism was penned by Mrs. E. Lynn Lin
| ton, once popular English novelist, as early
as 1868. We are so accustomed to having
| the late war blamed for all the giddy be-
hapior of the present that it is something of
| a shock to discover that the flappers of other
| eras were also considered hopelessly way
| ward. AS a matter of fact, there has prob
| ably never been a year since the days of
| Adam and Eve when some querulous voice
has not been lifted up against the needless
| designations of youth.
Grim mi
| eral decades ago the way girls dressed to
| attract attention, added philosophically:
But has not, in every epoch, the race-old
| instinct of the female to bedeck her body so
1 as to attract the male, through whom alone
she can achieve her destiny, led to extremes,
| extravagances, even vulgarities? Doubtless
| every savage tribe harbors some shameless
mink, who, by her daring manner of putting
| on or taking off single bead, brings down
on her head the walls Of wrath of the older
women, who wonder what her mother can
be thinking off,
Bad Girls of the Eighties.
Even the prim eighties were not sufficient
| ly prim to satisfy many of the good citizens
| of the period According to Mrs. John Sher-
woods Manners and Social Usages' (1884)
| observers of society in New York and Wash
ing in those days found it to be-"a record
| of drunkenness, filtration, bad manners and
gossip, backbiting, divorce and SANDER"
Far back in 1919, apparently, conditions
| were just DIS DdQ. IN LQ1S year we I1QQ MISS
| Emma Willard making an Address to the
| public, particularly to members of the Legis-
| lature of New York." in which she beseeches
| that body to contribute some instant means
! for educating the young females Of the state
| las possible panacea for the frivolity of
| the time"
| mot content with doing nothing to pro-
mote their countrys welfare" she declared,
| like pampered children, they reveal in it's
| prosperity and scatter it to the winds with
wanton profusion and still worse, they i'm
| prison its source by diffusing contempt for
| useful labor. To court Pleasure their bust
| ness; within her tample, in defiance of the
| laws OF God and man, they have erected the
| idol OF Fashion, and upon her altar they sac
| rlflce with shameless rites whatever is sacred
| to virtue or religion"
! Miss Janet Richards, lecturer, recently
| 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
| instil into their childrens minds the fine
| high ideals of womanhood which were once
| given to them" But far back in the past
| as 1884 we find Mrs. Sherwood registering
| the same complaint. "The American
| mamma wrote Mrs. Sherwood, Greats her
beautiful daughter as if she were a very COM
mon piece of Delft indeed and as if she
could drift down the stream of life, knocking
! all other vessels to pieces, but escaping in
| jury herself.
| Chaperons Always Myth.
Much of the modern flapper's Wayward-
ness is attributed to lack of chaperonage
on the part of her mother but as matter