AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 188, 11 August 1925, Page 23

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST.

(By SHIRLEY.) ..— ... !

From New York comes an exciting j; tale of a society lady who enticed a | typist girl into her motor and there started a riot, marital jealousy being the reason. A lady friend who was driving the car, and who evidently had not been taken into confidence beforehand, tried to cut the business short 'by driving a* fast as she could to the police station, ■where the constable coming to the rescue, accidentally "got one."' All America is alleged to be "highly amused ,, over the episode. We trust our American visitors will not find us rather dull. We cannot offer to catc- for them in tliis way. • » * * • If this be their temperament, they will probably grow quite hilarious over a rumour now circulating among Auckland's girlhood that all young people under 21, if female, are to be forbidden any part of the city outdoors after sunset, so long as the Fleet is here. "At first they wanted girls under sixteen, and now it's under twenty-one. I suppose it's that awful Society." said one, darkly. The association in question, j howcycr, is guiltless. "Curfew shall not ring to-night" is to be our motto. "Were our visitors Canadians, however, and not Americans, they might see nothing particularly untoward in such a restriction, except its sex one-sidedness, for lately Gait, Ontario, has brought in an enactment that all young people must go home on the ringing of a bell. Time unspecified. Evidently there are not ] many bells rung in that particular district. • • • • ♦ Other Auckland girls are wondering whether-the'visitors will bring in a new dance called the Charleston, which is to oust the Tango. One knows it is newer because you stand still instead of moving about (that is what you call a "dance"' nowadays). You stake out a claim for yourself in one particular part of the floor, then you stand in it with your partner and shiver. In We Charleston you quiver much'more than in any other dance, and you also remain on one spot much more. It is the most up-to-date kind of terpsichorean exercise that has yet been evolved. It wouldn't have suited young Lochinvar at all, because he would never have got the lady away. They would have seen at once what he was up to if he had tried moving her nearer the door. It - would have seemed to them unnatural dancing should mean moving right or left instead of just up and down, the game being always to come back on the same epot. However, we moderns have quite got over the foolish idea that dancing should be dancing. •_• » * • Something that sounds like a film comedy but which might have been a real life tragedy took place in a Sydney suburban home the other day. A young housewife, her sense of emell incapacitated by the 'flu, lit her stove, not reali--1 i

sing that the gas had for some time been turned on. An explosion took place, and ; the next minute hubby, from a window, j mw his wife rush out to the garden, I half succeeding in stifling the leaping flames. Being interrupted in shaving, lie ( out to the rescue, razor in hand.; His wife's sister, concluding that he hail I gone homicidally mad, gave immediate j chase, her screams bringing to the scene I a neighbour who. considering her a hysteria ca«e, proceeded to take her in hand, while another went after the i "murderer." Fortunately at this june- j ture a policeman appeared, and pave ■ much needed first-aid all round, like- I wise breaking the chain of accidents that might have gone oil indefinitely. Occasionally in New Zealand we hoar complaints that men "do not think enough of their drcsV." the accusation rousing more indignation among women than the sex which 'is accused. A Sydney I lady had an answer for a "Honre." who I made the same statement against, Aus- j tralian masculinity. She told the newcomer that any .morning down King Street she could see her idea of a gentleman .white spats, over-shiny patent leather boots, the correct striped pants, J the well-cut morning coat, irreproach-. able linen, silk hat, gloved hands, gold-1 mounted stick gracefully twirled. The! ITomie went forth to rejoice her eyes with something "English." Tb<s elegance !as described was there all right, but tht> good-humoured face, that of an cxpugilist, was ebony black! * * » * # "Hope," discussing lady"s dress for many .decades, finds his most gloomy recollection not in the crinoline, most | men have a weakness for that atrocity, but in the Grecian Bend. He isn't able, i however, to explain much about it. Either j the lady got into the cage or she fas- j teiied it behind her. Anyway, while she, was wearing it she reminded everyone of j a "good dog which has been taught toj walk on its hind legs; she also carried her hands as the good dog carries his forepaws in those chvumstances. On her head, a little nor'-nor'west, she carried a football object, a stuffed, cushion-like affair confined in a net and meant to \ simulate a wealth of real hair. It was j secured there by hairpins I think," says Hope, as if it might as reasonably he glue, "and the saucy little hat had to take its chances, perched up at a dangerous angle." Skirts were very volu-, ' ininous in those days. It wasn't the case of the child disconcerted because it • [ couldn't reach up to Mum's dress, it was j the child swished back and made to sit i down suddenly if Mum weren't very j I careful in her movements. "Hope"' [ I notices also the heroines of that period ■! who were always displaying a "provok- j '. ing little foot." "Clad in the coeval pru- [ nella elastic-sided footwear, to mc they, ( would have been r.ot only -provoking but; exasperating. At least I think so now, > . but everything in the way of feminine; 'fixings' in those days met with masculine ■ approval. We didn't know any better,] ( yoj see." ! ' New Goods now on display in all • departments. Inspection ew?'»»/ • invited.—Smith and Caughey, Ltd. T Ad.