AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 250, 21 October 1924, Page 10

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. , (By SHIRLEY.) Mr. Mitchell Hodges, an explorer, lias been amusing Englishwomen by his statement that England's loss of power and prestige is due to the incursion of women into power. Women are responsible for war, poverty, and other evils afflicting innocent Man. It is. of course, an historical fact that Mrs. Kruger brought about the Boer War. while to the Kaisprin was due the more recent I trouble. At least that's how it ought to be according to Mr. Hodges. He has been advised to return to savage regions where he will find woman in her proper place and, of course, no fighting at all; Sometimes, however, especially when they think it can't matter, public men do appeal to our sex. Thus Mr. Langstone when opposing our own Summertime F ! ll—"the most important section of the community, the mothers in the homes, whose opinions we ought to get before passing this bill." Well, many a mother has said that she would like" all meals to be over and done with in one, so perhaps she would appreciate a measure which at least would get the last one finished and done with an hour earlier. As a matter of fact, it is man, proud man, who is being considered in this refusal to get the clock to obey the sun rather more than it now does (which is really what summertime comes to). It is the humiliation of the early morning worker who will "have to go to bed in the daylight" that is bringing tears to Parliamentary eyes, while Parliamentary tongues do not explain how the men of Konvay survive this ever recurring shame. * Woman would not worry in the least about this matter; numbers of housewives would be very glad indeed to get to sleep in the daylight. Such a one only notices that great consideration in recent debates was shown the bullocks, who would have to die earlier while the anti-bill sentiments of hens were taken into consideration by members of a feeling disposition. One member, I notice, accused another of liking bread and butter, apropos ef the annoyance he would feel if somehow or other the butter part became inferior than now owing presumably to resentful cows. But nobody quoted Stevenson's I><ies it not seem unrd When I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day V Probably the general feeling of' most women is that as we are a brave and adventurous people, we should "have had a stab at it," as the Americans say, i.e., given Summertime a trial. An Auckland woman's organisation, live if not large, held a debating evening lately, each member leading 'a paper. Mrs. Besaut's. Career. Motherhood-Kudow-ment, the Value of the Large r'anulv, were among the subjects', discussed. * I much admired one lady who declared re the large family that its iniquity consisted in the fact that it did teach unselfishness. There is something in this statement. Formerly the world, it was alleged, inculcated the child with the advantages of hardness and callousness, ' while the gentle mother drew it to her knee to advocate kindness and softness. Now everyone is so impressing the young with hoy scout altruism and not thinking too much of getting on and so forth that it is left for the aforesaid mothers to teach them to consider their own interests. At least so some gentle mothers have informed mc. Political matters are before us all just now, whether we like it or not, and women have noticed with interest the recent proposal that old-age pensioners should bo refused this State aid if they have relatives rolling in wealth. Betty Higgins died beneath the stars because she had no rich relatives and could not '■ , endure State aid. To-day her descen- ' dunts would die beneath these southern stars rather than "take from their rich I relatives if there is no State ' to assist them. The State is the true rich relative of to-day. j Why. then, should we lie penalised through having well-to-do connections of the ordinary sort? The rich relative is in any case a nuisance. Modem

women do not boast of such, as people do in fiction. They hide them away as in fiction poor relations are hidden away. At least they are beginning to think and feci like this, if ue j n ,j brutally alive is going to deprive us our pensions, widows, old age and so forth, we will hide them away more carefully than ever. An anti-stocking screen is a sober reality in the Law Courts of Los Angeles. Silken hosiery of fair witnesses is found to play such havoc with the judgment of susceptible jurymen in that city 'that Judge -ummerheld, in the Superior Court, had a three-feet ' biph barrier of solid oak built in front of the witness chair so as to hide the daintily-shod limbs of feminine occupants. "The judge raised a hand," says an observer, '•and the usher placed ";i ! low. movable screen about the witness ' stand. He was enforcing the new edict of the Court that there should be no display of silk hosiery from the stand." The judge, it seems, takes the view that even the most astute lawyers have been found to pause in the midst of oratorical (lights as their gaze falls upon a shapely contour of* silk. As for jurors, "it distracts their attention from the pvidence." Clearly this is an argument for women jurors. Considering the amount of etiquette ! there is concerning domestic service in I the Homeland, it is reassuring that so many of our migrant girls have turned out well. They are inclined to shy at '•doing everything" in a colonial house, but when it is explained to them that they are not expected to do everything at once, or almost at once, which seems to be their fear, they become reconciled. They have to he housemaid-parlourmaid, cook and washer-up, but as they only do a small amount of each they are good enough to say that it will add a spice of variety. It would be natural for them to be otherwise than sensible, for consider the tales they could tell. There was, for instance, that dreadful ease in nn English household when one of the footmen announced that he would not draw the drawing-room curtains. Immediately the other footman became a conscientious objector. As the housemaids absolutely refused to do.anything so derogatory, there was seen the awful spectacle of the butler himself performing the shameful task. There was. again, the case of a lady not versed in English domestic etiquette who inadvertently spoke to one footman of another as Jones, without the Mister. "Mr. Jones is out,'' replied his fellowworker, who knew that while he should he called Jones by his employer when himself addressed he should always be Mr. Jones when spoken of to a fellowdomestic—which is a very excellent feeling, and to be respected.