My Humble Opinion

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 256, 26 October 1907, Page 12

My Humble Opinion

1 PIERROT.

KO ROOM FOE THE BACHELOR.

I suppose it is generally conceded that the whole world is arranged for the married man. Whether or not an actual conspiracy is in force against us. I shall not attempt to decide. 'But that' it is all the same as if there were no ordinary close observer of the world about him is likely to den}". And is it quite fair? We cannot all be married the moment that the idea of marriage takes hold of us; many of us are too modest to think we ever ought to marry; and. anyhow, is it right that the more or less protracted meanwhile should be spent in hardship and suffering? I maintain that while the married man is inflnitelv our superior—let us grant him that for the sake of peace—we have still certain elementary rights of which we are consistently deprived. The whole of retail shopkeeping. for example, is planned wholly and solely for the benefit of the, married man. If the bachelor's garments are in holes, no proper business provision is made for their repair. Obviously, it would pay any laundry handsomely to mend eveiy lacerated piece of apparel that comes into its establishment: because we poor bachelors would immediately transfer to it our custom from the laundry that lcafes our rents alone or makes them worse. But even the laundries are engaged in the conspiracy against us. In effect, they say to us, "Wives mend, we wash." Then take the simple but eternal problem of the needle and thread. Not one shopkeeper that I have known has had i the business wisdom to thread his ' needles! Now. that is simply absurd. To ofl'er a bachelor a packet oT needles and a reel of cotton as two separate, entities is only a little more sensible than to sell him a watch in pieces witli a diagram showing him how to put them together. We would be ready to pay for our threaded needles: personally 1 should think them cheap at two a penny, and would be a regular buyer on those terms. Again, I would' buy all my linen from a shopkeeper who would freely and. as a matter of course, neatly mark every article I bought of him 'with my full name. At present, with a little persuasion on my part, and some bad grace on theirs, they will stick on a beggarly initial or two in the most unsatisfactory and least permanent style. As a matter j of fact, it would even pay them handsomely to adapt the type writer to marking linen, and run every article through it before it left the shop. But why should they?—for a bachelor. Ladies and gentlemen, let us face the fact; the word is a term of contempt. Perhaps it is only in Utopia that I shall find my ideal c-hop. duly advertised as catering especially for bachelors; foreseeing their needs, and saving them an endless round of petty troubles. But! certainly the Utopian newspaper will have "Needs of bachelors especially considered." as one of the advertisers' first bids for public support. Because, after all. the bachelor is not a rare animal, although the tone of the supercilious Benedi'-t would lead you to think that he was almost extinct. And he is a grateful creature, loyal to those who help him to escape the worst -sufferings of his state. That his custom is worth cultivating the impartial will easily perceive. Unfortunately, his business value as a customer has hitherto been obscured by the prejudice against his unmarried j condition The kind of vicissitude we have to endure may be exemplified in an unromantic incident in my immediate past. Resolving to sacrifice something of appearance to a big increment of comfort, I buy six soft shirts. Now, a married man could keep those shirts soft: I am a bachelor, and I have suffered the bachelor's usual experience of finding that for him soft shirts are a forbidden luxury. Those laundry people, apparently, make up their mind that no bachelor shall wear soft shirts, and they etarch him into anger, and even bad language. I assure you there is a pathos in one's prayerful last glance at number six as it is engulfed in the linen-bag for the wash. "Why not complain?" I hear somebody say—and I fancy the voice is a lady's. Madam, we do not complain; we are a mutely suffering race. Besides, we can"t. What bachelor has ever seen his washerwoman —or washerman? (for he does not even know the person's sex). To us a laundry is an abstraction; concrete only in its powers of destruction, and sometimes of seeming annihilation. We can only long for the absent-minded "'hand" who will forget her imaginary duty, and leave at least one shirt in the possession of something of its pristine comfort. i Take the bachelor in the average re- | staurant. He must smile from an aching heart —or he will not be served. No j matter how mind-weary he may be, no matter if his head is splitting, and his liver in active revolt, he must win his ! way to his food with pleasantries with I the damsel whose leisurely graces give j way to activity only in the service or those for whom she feels a personal regard. The hot air robs him of appetite; and he thinks of some corpulent benedict, and pictures him at his snowwhite, neatly-laid table, eating home- [ cooked dainties—with a sweet and joyous presence to lend them further savour! And yet they have the heart to scold us. to ridicule us, to load us with arrogant insult, seeing a crime and not a misfortune in our deprivation! At least bachelors have hearts! Now, why should we have to suffer as we do, and why should the shopkeeping people pursue a policy of "biting their nose to spite their face,' , and, incidentally, injuring us? Besides, they should allow for that perversity that in some degree is present in all of us; that perversity that is sure to answer the "You must marry" with the, "Then I won't." The rejoinder may be frivolous, but it is deeply human, and, with many of us, almost inevitable. Meantime, we have to suffer from laundries, from shopkeepers, from restaurants, and all the interests that have combined to increase our unhappiness, And we shall sufTer until we can combine for effective resistance. What form of warfare we shall eventually wage I canriot say. Possibly, we shall even start our own co-operative stores to cater for our particular needs, and free ourselves for ever from the contemptuous services of the existing shopkeeper. But the day has not yet come for threats; as a class, we are at present too crushed to feel fully the depths of our wrongs. But the day may come yet. and then our protest might possibly be both sudden and effective. Benedict is not invulnerable. Our easy good nature may have blinded him to the fact,