AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 220, 16 September 1924, Page 13

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

a (By SHIRLEY.) 5

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. \

I wonder how Isobel Mac Donald felt when Queen Mary, taking her round the Palace, showed her, amongst other pre- ( cious relics, the "gold closet," as it is l called, worth two millions. After all, ] there is something in the contention ac '' to Labour's inconsistency in "mixing in" I' with royalty, not because it's royalty, of course, but because it's also plutocracy. lUeanwhiifc, that particular woman Labour member, Dorothy Jewson, is exciting comment in a frivolous House by appearing, lately, her neck ornamented with one of those jazz handkerchiefs not looked upon with approval by men. Her male political opponents affect to believe that the adornment is an idea of Dorothy's own, and that it is really one of those red handkerchiefs in which workmen carry their noon-day bread and cheese, and donned by Dorothy to symbolise her democracy. Speaking of dress, the first lady golf champion lived so long ago that her photo standing beside the massive silver cup that she won has been in existence now thirty years. It shows the heroic lady in a small sailor hat on the top of a mountain of hair, a drawn-in buckled waist, a heavy skirt to the toe tips, while the golf weapon is held in a demurely kid-gloved hand. For winning a game thus attired she received a cup. She should have been given a halo. _ One thing a woman likes to feel quite tightly feed is her hat, and this was the one satisfaction that the previous generation of woman never experienced at all, owing to the distance of brim from scalp, no cosily fitting "pull on" in those times. Sometimes she would not knowthat that erection pinned to the top of puffed hair was off until she would Bee it—the hat, not the hair—rolling in front of her. She did not feel her hat, but she did feel the stiff collar, and tight bound wrists and the boned bodice. She was never for a moment unconscious of them. But don't pity the women of that epoch. They thought themselves very sensibly dressed, having not long given up the crinoline. It was a common saying of the time that one felt better for being sartorially rigid for at least part of the day. /** * * * We are always hearing of the pleasantness and agreeableness of our Eskimo ; i cousins, but as people say of patent medicines; there is a reason. It seems there \ is , no particular police or magistrate's court in the country, and when anyone becomes unpleasant, after a warning or two, he is given the happy dispatch. As | a rule a relative performs the deed, bo 'as to make the whole thing seem a family matter. It is not stated ' J whether women also come under this ,! rule, but as they are alleged to have full . ; equality with meri, probably they do. ': Whenever equality expresses itself in a ! disagreeable way, it is seldom refused us. ' . Some of our New Zealand libraries now have special rooms for children, so it is surprising that they are not kept in them. Children giggle, move up and 1 .down, play finger game 3on the maga- [ zincs when allowed in the adult room, 1 but, as I notice when watching them j through the glass partition, are still as ! statues when in their own apartment. This is a contradiction of child nature which I do not attempt to unravel. Children naturally have been driven into • libraries a good deal lately owing to what someone has called the horror days I now happily passed. . Anyway, I can I understand" the Australian who at a recent break-up said he would not wish ' the children, but rather the parents, a ,'pleasant holiday. There was more need this wishing.

Sometimes it is not until the protest is made that we know anything of the evil. Thus Labour women at a recent Sydney convention asked for a measure to protect women picture theatre attendants who are obliged when on duty to wear masculine costume. I at least must confess ignorance of any such custom compulsory for the Australian goddess who guides you down a black alley with a small light that makes things "worse. Sydney is certainly a queer city. Some of our own Labour women and otherwise have been raising their voices on behalf of the Women Justices of the Peace Bill. Our William has answered them softly. He is quite on the side of women it seems. He states that he is even chaffed about it in the House. He says that he does not think women should be treated with injustice, and he looks forward to the bright day when they won't be. He points out that this special bill of theirs would have had more chance if it had been a Government measure. The answer to this is obvious, at least to the weak feminine intelligence. Why doesn't he help to get it made a Government measure ? Mr. Massey seems continually waiting, in respect to 6uch reforms, to see how the cat will jump. He does not realise that he is the cat.

"The gods be praised. My master is unhurt, and the soul of his slave swells with rapture." Such was the exclamation of a Chinese wife married to an Englishman, after she had helped to rescue him from drowning. The husband narrates the story and contrasts Chinese tact with the exclamation of an American wife who came aboard that same boat during a rather rough gale, being so well guarded by the sailors that they let go her husband who fell into the | water. The wife leaned over the rail and yelled down at him: "What's th 6 matter you poor fish? Can't you step over your own feet?" Admittedly this was not tactful. Evidently a man haa to choose between insincere praise and perhaps equally insincere blame. Manlike, the narrator admits that the Chinese wife's heart probably didn't beat with rapture at all —yet he ethically prefers her. • s • • • • If we Anglo-Saxons do not go in much for tact, however, we have another policy which to some Australian critics lately is much more hideous—they call it the grin philosophy. Everywhere you meet it—greet the world with a smile and it will smile back at you —"a smile costs nothing"—all the rest of it. It is called the courage for life ideal, but as a matter

of fact, says one growler, it is really the philosophy of fear disguised. He points out icily that it was not a man that wrote smile and the world smiles with you, etc. It was written hy a woman in deadly terror lest her next publisher's cheque should not he equal to that received last year. (Poor Ella Wheeler Wilcox!) At least, however, that dreadful poem called "If," advocating a degree of self restraint and sweet reasonableness that would drive the follower of his creed absolutely insane was written hy a man! • ••••• There is a "Jack London" Anti-Cruelty Society in Auckland, or one branch of it. Members are pledged to leave the place of amusement theatre, or whatever it is, as a protest whenever a trained animal act is to be shown. (The picture theatre is excluded from th? . -v-.) Some —omen are members of th-~ society. I if any of them as they leave will he observed to wear o-sprey feathers.