PARIS : AN UNRECORDED REVOLUTION - IN MANNERS [To the Editor
of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Let us rejoice that the prudery which:has warped the vision of civilization for hundreds of years shows at last signs of giving way in favour of a true discrimination as- to - what is good and what is bad in such scenes as your correspondents have described in Paris. Obviously a " revue " which-reminds one of the licentious- Roman Saturnalia, against which. Chris- tianity rightly protested, must be bad. - On the other -hand; a " revue " such as Paterfamilias describes, which gives those present an opportunity, otherwise denied, of .worshipping at the shrine of the most beautiful thing in the worldthe ideal female form—must obviously be good, and could not possibly be contrary to Christian principles: My own instincts as a man, and I know other men feel the same thing in varying degree, frequently rebel against the artificial custom of civilization by which this beauty, though all -around us, is always veiled. The restilts have been most disastrous. SOme men have a life-long struggle repressing these instincts, but at what a cost to health modern psychology has clearly shown. Other men seek to satisfy them in all kinds of clandestine ways, which in too Many cases lead to definite immorality and deceit, as some recent trials have ,shown. Why, I ask, should it be indecent to see the most beautiful thing in the world ? Is not St. Paul right When he says : " To the pure all things are pure " ? Why should it be right for the artist and sculptor to see and adike this beauty, but indecent for their fellow-men ? Is it not essential that this instinct which burns so strongly in men's hearts should be satisfied in some 'such way as Paterfamilias describes, rather than that it should be repressed at the expense of health and morals ? I am convinced that if such scenes were carefully chosen and filmed, and shown in our best -places of entertainment, the young- er generation_ in our land would , strongly approve:and be all the better for it, and in a few years public opinion in England would approve of the real thing, and hot only a fihu being staged. . _ But—and this is essential—just as this subject has been Mooted- in a most. respectable newspaper, so the matter must betaken up by our most respectable cinemas and theatres.—
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