AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 260, 3 November 1925, Page 20

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. (By SHIRLEY-) The Auckland cleric who wandered into a picture show the other day. and described the effect on himself as a nightmare was probably not exaggerating, if for a long time lie had not visited this class of entertainment. Only one gradually trained through the ever increasing sensationalism of this amusement can really endure it nowadays. You must get acclimatised. There is no thrill I envy more than that of the adult seeing tlie modern picture for the first time." If the aim of life is. as some philosophers maintain, not enjoyment, but experience, he has it. The cleric certainly told his congregation that he had. » ♦ • • Not only, however, is the silent drama a wilder thing than formerly—the new rendering of old classics, given now or seemingly to be given every ten years or so. goes further from the original. I can remember twelve years ago a "Three Weeks" quite Sunday schoolish by comparison to that recently presented. David C'opperfield also shown. about the same time was also true to the book. Dora did spoil the cooking, while an actual Gyp ran over an actual table. Also David did not meet her for the first time at a "swell" party, and she was not represented as a dashing young lady as in the more up-to-date version. Possibly when that classic is presented for the third time another twelve years later she will be represented as a suffragette! • * • » Sydney trams and buses are to be called "she." , • So says an authority, the reason being that they are to be painted soon in gaudy and varied colours, prawn pink, pea green, chocolate, and old rose are some of the shades mentioned. Whether they will be given feminine names also, such as Lily or Madeleine, is not stated. We have a Lily along one of our suburban routes, but she (how easily one falls into the pronoun) is as sober of colour as she is staid of demeanour. Lily is an omnibus. Our trams somehow are nameless, and one less easily imagines them sporting gay tints, attempting to make a Brighter Auckland". Inquiries are made as to whether the Sj'dney woman, who has a fine sense of artistry, will like entering a sky blue tram when perhaps her own favourite confection is mauve. (She will like still less maybe entering it when her colour is the same—such are the mysteries of woman's nature.) If the colouring of her suburban tram clashes with her own "rig out"' will she change her dress or her address? "My girl seemed a bit down, so I had her vaccinated and confirmed, but that didn't seem to cheer her up a bit." Thu.9 remarked one mother, according to a recent story. Perhaps if the vaccination had ;been done in the latest reported way, so as to result in a fascinating dimple, the effect would have been better. Nowadays it seems that feat may. be achieved. In that case conscientious objectors to this law, among women at" least, will be more rare. We hear a good deal about depravity, among boys and girls, but sometimes I wonder if we are worthy of our young people.- « ~* • «» . ,/m " If. Thus* "orphaned by " the sVorm" oT influenza, a little girl of Gisbo"rnT"was put into the hands, more or less kindlr. of the State. Her brother, a boy, paid 10/ for her "keep." after which the Department called upon, another brother earning 30/ a week. a"nd living "on his own," to kindly hand over 10/ more. The magistrate rather rebuked officialdom by decreeing that 2/6 was sufficient, but the boy voluntarily raised the amount to five shillings. • • • \ » And for all her brothers spend on her the girl won't be a bat better off when she goes out at fourteen to be a scrub serf and to be absolutely without rights until twenty-one. I am afraid she will often wish that her relatives had quietly banked that extra half crown for her. though possibly she could -not have legally handled it till old enough for her to vote. "Spinsterhood," says one of our leading Auckland women, "is not an occupation, but a recreation."' This argument she used to have another word or si. against the ridiculous way in which we women are described on our voting papers. Spinsters, indeed ifWliy. most of! them in these days have quite forgotten! that they answer to this name, just as they never think of themselves as super fluous. I have heard one such unmarried lady speak of a married woman as "a regular old maid." Old maidism is a frame of mind nowadays, never a condition. Some years ago I remember I reading a story in which a Miss Smith !of a. lodging house turned out to have I dropped her married -cognomen, while ;Mrs. Brown later confessed that she had adopted a prefix to which she was not entitled, so that no one should know of her spinsterhood. The latter case to-day is rarer than the first. A New Zealand educational authority, indeed, lately gently rebuked our ' sex for marrying. That is to say. he indicated ! that it might be right and lawful for other women, but not for teachers. They were to be above such weaknesses, or else, as now, to suffer in salary. He also pointed out '"that the men must be considered. ,. Well: if the women marry I them, then they are being considered, and what's all the trouble about? ; If you have read the story of Arnold i Bennet by his wife, you will realise the I truth of the Auckland lady's statement •that "spinsterhood can be a recreation." "Why the lady, a French woman, gave away her husband so completely is not very clear; perhaps it was 'a Gallic method of warning off any possible rivals. And I should think they would jbe warned off. The hardest * worked cockey's wife outback would prefer her own existence to that of Mrs. Bennet. who from early morning till late afternoon must conspire with her maid to keep away the smallest sound from genius in its library. Xor does genius unbend as evening comes. On the contrary, he takes his tea without unbending* and afterwards "you/ , meaning herself, i "must not mind seeing him go out alone, jor else return once more to his library Ito brood." The result to her was a ) "nervous breakdown." "which I tried to j keep from him." The result to us was 1 "The Old Wives' Tale." , Perhaps it was worth it. • * ■» • : Yet one remembers Jane Austen writing her novels on scraps of paper, with the family buzzing all round, and Fanny Burney hiding hers beneath the table during many interruptions. Unkind to say—the superiority of woman once more—as rather it is a case of necessity, masculine Mrs. Arnold Bennets being rare.