REMINDER TO THE SOCIALLY CARELESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 149, 25 June 1901, Page 2

REMINDER TO THE SOCIALLY CARELESS.

I believe I have solved the problem of how to insure a reply from a careless recipient of an invitation," an« nounced the woman of ideas to het best friend.

"Indeed!" returned her friend, "df you mean to include in your invita* tions a statement to the effect thai the reigning tenor of the Opera House will be present, or that the lobster Newburg will be prepared by Mr Newburg himself?"

"Neither," calmly returned the woman of ideas, with commendable forbearance, "I have hit upon a much surer expedient. You know I give a good many 'at homes,' and otherwise aim to preserve the social equilibrium during the course of a season. Now r my establishment is not so large thai it can comfortably accommodate aU 'my dear five hundred friends.' When I invite a certain number of peopla to come I make provision for the en« tertainment of that number. If soraa send regrets, I immediately fill their places with others. But a good many never send regrets, simply do not come. "Then I have made arrangements for more guests than I actually receive. On the other hand, some do not bother to send acceptances, but come anyway, and, if I have taken their silence as a negatvie there are more present than I can readily accommodate. So it is sometimes enxbararassang. "Now I am going to change all this. I have just been down to my stationer's and given him an order which he assures me is the first of its kind he has been called upon to fill. I have told him to engrave on the one sheet of note paper I use the ordinary form of invitation. That was all right. He had been doing this for years, and he knew just how it should be done.

"But it was my second order which made him think. I had drawn up a form, or rather two forms, which I directed him to engrave on the se- I cond sheet of the invitation. This was to the effect that Mrs Soandso would be pleased to accept my invitation for a certain date, or that she would be compelled regretfully to decline the invitation. Between the two sheets were to be artistic perforations which would enable the recipient to tear the note in two and fill in either blank, according to her intentions. I also ordered a supply of self-addressed envelopes, one to go in each, invitation.

"I think this will be a most unmistakable hint to the careless that they are expected to lose no time in either accepting or declining my invitations. Don't you think so?"

But the dear friend murmured • something about the scheme being in use by soap manufacturers who send double postal cards to prospective customers, and the "woman of ideas" retired in a huff.