AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 134, 9 June 1925, Page 15

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. (Jiy SHIRLEY.) ■'He's not fit to kiss his wife's foot," said a Chicago counsel the other day on a man brought ni> for wife-benting. "[ disagree. That's just what he is fit for.' , will the judge, and ordered the man, as part of his punishment, to do *n. Tlip culprit thought it tactful no doubt to look wildly round as for escape, before kneeling and duljsmacking his lips against liis wife's Fhoe. In days of gallantry gentlemen drank out of a lady's slipper without majriMerial compulsion. H was not, however, the wife's slipper. -•♦•-. ricasant are the Fcenes in our own courts of a Monday morning when children are given to adoptive parents nt the rate, of three a morning. Full inquiries are made, and every freedom of choice is allowed the new guardians except that if an "unwanted" child has a younger equally "unwanted" brother the latter is not allowed |1 am informed) to have this chance, as "moral weakness has been shown." Poor Krasmus, philosopher, reformer and leader, how lucky for him that he never needed to come before a New Zealand adoptive magistrate. Peeresses are not to be allowed in the Upper House because a lady member once pulled a peer by the coat tails, and he has never forgotten it. At least that is the reason one annoyed gentleman gives for taking part in the grpnt refusal. He does not mention the name of the coat puller, but one's mind jumps at once to Lady Astor. Perhaps her action was symbolical—a hint, for him to change his coat in this respect, but whatever the motive, the honourable lord remained obdurate. It is good to read a Home magazine occasionally when it tells about us. There are people I believe who want such journals taxed so as to give local writers—forming into a club recently, I am told —some chance of getting their own work into the market. But it is hopeless! For imaginative touches we could never compete with the Londoner who has never been in New Zealand, and so is freer to make one out of lu3 own glowing fancies. Take for instance, an effort appearing lately in a Home monthly telling of a dour Scotchman a "stubborn bachelor" (in New Zealand too), and how he -was caught by the charms of a white girl whom he rescued from a band of savage Maoris (the date is carefully given 1921), and a picture of the fight, the brethren of Sir Maui Pomare "beating their torn toms" as they approach. It is explained that they "had never worn any.clothes until kindly provided for" by the dour Scotchman's friend who gave them blankets, etc., in return for curios. The girl, of course, was duly rescued, nml now "a happy married couple are residing at Wellington, the chief city of New Zealand, living sumptuously by the sale of the Maori curios aforesaid." I like that last touch immensely. Wireless is said to have something to do with the shortage of domestic servants both in Britain and some of the dependencies. One of them tells her sorrows. "When all the family starts listening-in, then I have to go about like a mouse or else it's 'I can't hear a word.' It's 'Jane, do come into the room quietly. Please put the coals on without "making a noise!' Why, coals is noise. I've to be in and out continually if the 'phone rings, if anyone calls,"and if something* goes wrong with the apparatus it's because I dusted it. A girl has to be a mechanic, a programme'iady. and a waitress all in one to get on "in one of those wireless houses." ~ . . • Whether they like noise or not, a critic has noticed that women offend more than men in this respect nowadays. In particular do they annoy with their feet. If you hear a person coming to you, it's a" woman, because the other sex go in more for rubber heels. It is her unguarded heels that make the firm little click. Bobby, in his cot, used to hear mother coming—if the sentimental poems tell aright—by the lovely froufrou of her skirts. Xow he must rely on the heels alone. If he wants the old gentle rustle he must wait for the more unromantic parent in his Oxford trousers, which according to a man's fashion paper are to be 25 inches round the knee and to flow round the ankles, and so out on to the street. This fashion is said to be according to a balancing law of Dame Mature, a law by which men must make up in dress for that in which women are deficient. Similarly a man's sweater is to have the collar rolled well up to the ears, and the only way we can save our male friends from being thus muffled is to eschew the collarless neck and muffle ourselves. The most recent ten commandments by a husband have more pathetic touches than is usually the case with such enactments, "bo not scold mc with your eyes," is poetic, and also commandment number two, "Don't fancy I object to have you ruffle my hair with your hand." "Make a fuss over mc now and then. I like it, though I'm old enough to knowbetter," also strikes the right note. 1 don't quite follow the argument in the fourth: "Don't give away my comfortable old clothee to some poor person. I don't give away yours." A woman does not object to her old clothes being given away. She might be quite pleased if marital authority decreed 4l wardrobe clearance. "Do get the work done before I get home,' , is a trenchant bit of pleading which will receive attention only when the office-going woman adds her entreaties on the subject. The woman who doesn't mind a muddle when she is part of it, and putting it right, is the very one that objects when she is tired onlooker only. Then she understands masculine hatred of this sort of thing.

We hear a good deal of the gay and giddy dance times of the present, but j an Auckland girl is of opinion that these \ are nothing compared with the whirling days of her grandmother. She tried an ; old-fashioned polka and waltz the other evening, but once down the room was '

enough for her. "How did you stand it? It makes my poor feeble modern head turn round and round) ]f that's the way our prrand parents went on for hours, no wonder we're all so degenerate if we are."' Mental not physical cxer- j lion is the idea in danc-inp to-day. Thus ' we .Anrkliinrlers may snmi he copying the London revellers who solve a cross-word puzzle written up one wall while they jazz past it! Tlie titM two that win announce their triumph and the music ■ stops. — - '■ - i