The Washington times., 1923-08-25
UPSEI
OVER MODERN
GIRL s SENSE
Lady Diana Manners Starts
Controversy That Has
Become National.
BY F. A. WRAY.
international News Service.


LONDON, Aug. 25.-Have the
women Of this generation less re-
straint, less sense of what is decent
and becoming than the women Of,
say, two generations ago?
That is the essense OF the conrto-
versy which, begun by Lady Diana
Manners. is now agitating Britain.
Lady Bland Sutton. wife Of Eng
lands most famous surgeon, answers
the query with a distinct Yes"
ITO me- she says, ''it is perfectly
sphsgt and justifiable accusation.
5ehady DIANA continues Lady
Sutton. seems more concerned with
the manners than the morals of
modern girls. am glad OF that.
because I hold no particular brief
for the girl of my own girlhood. 1
do not claim that she was, in a
sense. anv better than the girl of
today. But when it comes to the
question Of manners it is a very
different story.
20 Temporal! o Mores!'
Lady Diana tells us that there
has been no change at all. Things
have always been the same she
says, and always will be to the end
Of time Such an assertion strikes
me as all the more remarkable since
I happen to write Immediately after
witnessing the revival of a pla v
which burst on the horizon twenty
years ago as comet Of .impropriety.
1t Is now regarded as a highly re.
spectacle squib.
remember well when 1t was
produced. It was discussed with
bated breath; the heroine was re-
garded as a monster Of wickedness.
Today no young woman would turn
a hair at it's most thrilling passages.
Therefore I think it is safe. at
any rate, to assume that modern
girls are different.
what. then, are our criticisms?
To me the most distressing thing
ABOUT the modern girl is that, even
wnen she is innocent, she appears
TO desire to give the impression of
quit. There may have been plenty
OF foolish girls in the last genera
ton, but they had at least the de.
cency to disguise their folly. They
did not flaunt it on the housetops.
On Points of View.
The modern girl, for example,
considers it demodee to miss the
point OF a risque story. Her
mother would have regarded it as
declasse to see 1t. The girl makes
point of going to dances un.
chaperoned, even when her part
ner bores her to death. Her
mother would have insisted on q
chaperon, even If her whole soul
had been crying out for an hour
alone with her partner.
THE modern girl, even when her
lips are red as roses, plaSters them
with artificial scarlet because she
believes it smart. Even had her
mothers lips been white as snow
she would have avoided using cos.
metics, because she would have
considered them vulgar.
She drinks cocktail after cock.
tail, although she loathes them.
because otherwise she will be re.
garded as out Of date. But though
fleF HlOtn0T HdO OSen the 1nCarna.
ton of a drink fiend she would
have avoided turning her drawing
room into a saloon.
II am not advocating hypocrisy.
am not saying that everything ia
admissible so long as It goes on
behind closed doors. I do not say
that so long as the face which
meets the world Is demure, the
eyes downcast, then the thoughts
behind 1t do not matter.
But 1t does seem to me obvious
that II a woman persistently be.
HAYES as though she were declassee
she will presently become so. That
is the danger to which the modern
girl constantly Is subjected. It
may remain a pose to the. stronger
natures; to the weaker 1t rapidly
becomes q reality"