I think hitch-hiking was not only perceived as more dangerous, it was more dangerous - the crime rate in the US skyrocketed during the 60s and 70s.
Same series - they want to find all the greatest scientists for a conference, and there is a huge library they need to search that takes up a whole planet. They do the search with a card reader. 
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve been watching a few of the old Our Gang comedies and was struck by the fact that the kids – who were well under ten years old – were allowed to play unsupervised. The youngest ones did hang out with their older siblings, but you had six-year-olds who spent the day getting into trouble without an adult around until one showed up to deal with the mess they made.
That was the way it was in the 50s and early 60s: kids just hung out together without adults. But nowadays, you can’t leave a child that young without supervision, and it could be construed as child neglect.
What about bullying? Way back when, it was just a normal part of growing up? Stephen King’s Carrie is a good example. I think King probably suffered some serious bullying in his school days, and wished he had the powers needed to get revenge.
That’s [card readers] a change in technology, though, not one of attitudes. I suppose it’d have been to Smith’s credit if he had been able to predict electronic databases, but one can hardly hold it against him that he didn’t. Most science fiction writers don’t fare any better, and even the few who do, it’s mostly just by fluke.
I haven’t seen the movie, so maybe it involves a Gremlins crossover I’m unware of, but I think you mean Mowgli. 
Even worse, both Ten Little N-word and Ten Little Indians are references to children’s rhymes originating in the 19th century and being popular way after Christie’s book was published.
I collect vintage paperbacks, so I’ve been reading a lot of 30s and 40s mysteries lately. The depiction of the police investigation varies from fairly good crime scene work to the most casual perusal of the dead body. What I find most hilarious, though, occurs in the familiar plot of a bunch of unrelated people staying in a house when one of them is found dead. The police - invariably - order everyone to stay in the house. Of course - invariably - a second, and sometimes third, person is then murdered because they knew too much, while the murderer gets to gleefully destroy evidence and alter crime scenes at will. Didn’t the police ever read mysteries in those days? Everybody else did.
The Haight-Ashbury scene was destroyed by hard drugs by 1967. (The “Death of Hippie” parade took place in October.) Hard drugs spread though the rock world before 1970 and to their audiences by 1975. In the same way, hard drugs, cocaine primarily, became the drug of choice for partiers in the 1970s. That decade was also the decade for speed, with amphetamine abuse skyrocketing. Speed was abused by truck drivers to a frightening degree.
Remember the War of Drugs? Nixon started it in 1971. He wasn’t just going after pot.
I’m glad you had good experiences. I’m not sure that you can say they were typical.
In Burton’s version princes and princesses are constantly being thrown together and having sex after awhile. My favorite example in Arabian Nights is a story where the hero converts a serial killer giant to Islam and then casually mentions him killing the infidels because now that he’s a Muslim that’s perfectly acceptable.
Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars and Pellucidar stories feature casual female nudity.
There’s a scene in Bleak House where two of the women are talking about somebody and casually mention that her name is a “servant’s name”.
I am indeed thinking of Mowgli, you’ve probably just corrected a two decade long confusion regarding names.
Though featuring a Mogwai in the background of a scene in a Jungle book movie could be a funny easter egg.
Also, I’ve just read a webpage about the character gizmo and it suggests Mogwai’s are extraterrestrial in origin, I don’t think that was ever mentioned or implied in the movies? Edited to add that on further reading apparently they were supposed to be aliens, wow I don’t think that improves things or makes a better story to be honest.
During which time hitchhiking was pretty common.
After that the crime rate went back down again, and everybody starting thinking hitchhiking was too dangerous.
After hearing all the hype about The Great God Pan I expected it to be somewhat risque but after reading it and finding it boring. I can’t help wondering if they were reacting to the weirdly hentai style illustrations.
I hitchhiked to work almost every day in the 70s. It was so common, that you had a choice of rides: “Guess I’ll put my thumb down til this old pickup goes by, there’s a sportier car coming along.” If I ever needed a ride right away, I had a “Help! Going To Be Late For Work” sign
When I did drive, I often picked up four people, my car’s max occupancy. If no one picked you up, you could always wait for that one hippie dude who drove a VW bus… or the Ol’ Prospector, who had a guest book on his dashboard.
It all ended abruptly in the early 80s. I remember thanking a woman who picked me up with the line “I’m going to write a book: Hitchin’ in The Reagan Years. NO ONE is stopping any more… so thank you!”
In fairness to Popeye’s writers, he never gets around to using it and feels great remorse for even thinking about it.
In the classic “comedy” “Refer Madness”, the young men and women who are about to be corrupted by the scourge, marijuana all casually puff on cigarettes as though it is completely natural and wholesome.
Eh, I hitchhiked a bit in the past decade or so, once I realized that it was a much more reliable way of getting to and from the airport than the local cab company.
Reading Arthur Machen for the juicy parts is bound to lead to disappointment. Don’t let it dissuade you from “The White People,” though, which totally lives up to its hype.
With “Pan,” you want to get more of a peek at this wild depravity the soulless woman is wreaking all over London. In “White People,” the subtle approach is much more effective. And you’re seeing all the spooky stuff through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl.
Plus, it’s another example of a young child rambling through desolate woods and hills far afield, while her parents and the servants stay at home not giving a damn where she is.
I’m reading a 1954 book by Enid Blyton, one of the most prolific children’s authors of the mid 1900s.
Twins, seven years old, are being sent unaccompanied on a 5 hour train trip.
"“I’ll tell the guard to come and have a look at you now and then,” [mother] said. “You’ll be quite all right, because you don’t have to change anywhere. Eat your sandwiches when you see a clock on some station pointing to half-past twelve.”
In the “real life, not fiction” section - a couple of years ago my daughter’s school play was based around the story of a 9-year-old kid called Lennie Gwyther who rode to Sydney to see the opening of the Harbour Bridge in 1932. From 1000km away. By himself. It was a reward for having done all the plowing that season, when his dad was laid up with a broken leg.
People were tougher, back when. Though the fact that he got famous for it is an indication that, even for the 30s, that feat was pretty out there.
Still is common in much of Europe. What’s incredible to me is how much it freaks out people from non-rural areas.
One of the times I picked someone up as I was going home, it was two teenaged girls attending a summer camp nearby. The blonde one had been there before and was used to local customs, her brunette friend was a newbie from Mallorca (where I definitely wouldn’t want to be picked up by strangers). By the time I dropped them off exactly where they were going (which only took me out of the way by about ten minutes total, oh noes, and I didn’t have to be anywhere at a specific time anyway), the blonde was grinning from ear to ear about having her predictions on the complete non-dire-ness of hitchhiking fulfilled and the brunette was oh-wowing for all that she was worth.