"HENPECKED'S" DAY OFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1922, Page 19

"HENPECKED'S" DAY OFF.

UII'tfRAXD'S ESCAPE FROM TYRANTS. Easter Monday is ''the henpecked husband's day In Yorkshire, for then the Henpecked Husbands' Club hold their annual meeting in some moorland village outside Halifax. The object of the club is farce, and it certainly achieves Its aim. Naturally the meeting-place is kept secret from the wives, lest they should descend on the meeting nnd lead away the members of the "Ancient Honourable and International Order of Henpecked Hus-bands" by the ear.

i Membership, for which there is always competition, is confined to men who avow themselves the slaves of tyrant wives, and some of them certainly display a knowledge of domestic economy which lends colour to their plalnL It is not enough for a man to complain that he Is henpecked: he must offer proof. "Can you discharge your household duties truly and faithfully, according to tbe orders of your wife?" is oue question. "Do you light the fire, fetch the coal and chop the wood?" "Do j'ou wash and cook, and run the errands?" are among the other queries. One candidate was once tripped up hecause be said the night before be had to take his wife to the cinema. "If you were properly henpecked." said the chairman, "your wife would take you to the cinema." Another applicant was almost rejected because his boots shone so brightly that it was impossible to believe he had cleaned them himself. Tbe highest honours were awarded to the candidate who said that not only did be do the washing after he came home at ni_ht, but he had ironed bis wife's blouses without burning them. Generally members are graded by the size of their feet, although, as the chairman carefully explains, no one must lay himself open to the suspicion of using either boots or slippers in a corrective way upon his wife.

The business of the day includes the election of .1 "mayor," who wears aji old bicycle chain or a yard of heavy dog chain, as a symbol of his office, while his mace comprises a grotesquely painted barber's pole.