AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1926, Page 17

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST.

(By SHIRLEY.)

The Minister of Education is going off at the deep end. At least that is the impression we get to how he feels about himself and how his numerous adherents feel about him as regards the woman inspectorship. For we are to have a woman inspector of teachers at last. It ha 3 been promised, and the promise is to be fulfilled.

■ Wlien -we decide on matters like this we are inclined, we in Xew Zealand, to feel quite solemn about ourselves. We are "going it." That is the general sentiment. Some day I quite expect to hear a city merchant announce that he is going "to have a woman clerk or typist —he really believes in giving the other sex a chance! It is an experiment, but possibly it may succeed—one must be a little dashing sometimes! However, we must be pleased that there is any movement, and wish it the success that this and greater ventures have had in other lands. We trust on-5 thing may be remembered. To choose &n inspector who is a -woman is a good thing, but to choose a woman who is an inspector is also necessary —to choose, that is, the right woman —there is always one somewhere —who will not please the " I told-you-sos " by making a mess of it. ...

If an injustice —anyway a small one —is joked about Tong enough, it usually is conquered in time. One might make quite a mathematical problem about how many jokes it takes in so many years to get a wrong righted. In some cases the joking -weapon is still being plied, and there is a good deal yet to be done. Not so with the railway sandwich. It, is many, many years now since the comic story traveller visiting some ancient city to see the ruins held up that article of refreshment, and asked, awe-stricken, from what ancient ruin 3 this specimen had been dug. However, as the joke got older and older, the sandwich became fresher and fresher. I myself, for instance, can never remember receivjpg a stale railway sandwich, or even one with that hard crinkle on the top layer which makes one automatically reverse it so as to get the crackle on the underside. My sandwich is usually so new as to be almost a wet one, damp with the moisture from the inside meat newly delivered from its brine.

So much for the sandwich, but what about our railway towels? I wish someone would joke about this, and " speed up." if possible, in the reform. This towel also is wet, but it is not at all new or fresh- It is, on the contrary, very, very old. You roll it round and round trying to get a dry spot, but this is "the " spot" you cannot get on a New Zealand railway journey. Hence, women at least are adopting new tactics. They rely on circumstances for sandwiches on the journey, and pack their lunch baskets instead with nice fresh paper serviettes. These are the more necessary.

Says the cynic, '"Somehow the bachelor never gets quite beyond the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever." Evidently, . however, Auckland women had other impressions of their men, married or single, -when ihej imitated.

an Australian State in instituting an "Ugly Man" contest. It is carefully explained that ugly is really synonymous with, popular, which certainly gilds it, and helps the lucky winner to bear an honour which at one time would have meant pistols for two and coffee for one. American friends among us, however, will have to receive a linguistic lesson before they can appreciate the business. Ugly in their vernacular means angry, even as we keep it in "ugly customer." 'To obtain their idea of the other we I must use the pleaaanter "homely," by which it is signified that type of features should keep at home. The U3€ of "ugly" by a friend from the States sometimes leade to slightly embarrassing results. A group of "colonials," for instance, can remember conversing -with a newly arrived American lady who though smart and pleasant was not. to their eyes at least, endowed with absolute beauty. "I tell you I looked ugly, real ugly," she said, narratinz some "incident regarding herself in an" argument. "Oh, no," the listeners murmured, and one of the younger came out with, a too emphatic "Oh, we wouldn't call you that," However, though she looked somewhat surprised, it was hoped she would get back to her I native land before being enlightened. I ...

The holidays, strictly speaking, are over. They do not of course look over, but then they never do look, finished, and done with in New Zealand. That is the penalty we pay for our frequent garden tents and our crowded beaches. Still the holidays are over, and this month a new batch of girls are making their debut in the business world. I wonder how many of them, satorially speaking, have made the champagne for breakfast mistake?

This "was made, someone points out, by Sylvia, the other day when, before going out to try for her first job, she twirled before her criticising family in a lovely pink crepe de chine with an organdie hat, and her brothers asked her whose party she was attending. She came back a few hours later, not having got the job, and furious. "I hope the wretched man chokes." Strangely enough, as was discovered later, this* might-have-been employer, nearly 'was choking. '"I had ten girls to see mc this morning. I want a new shorthand typist secretary. The first who applied gave mc a headache for the day. She was swathed in pink crepe de chine, and had a hat that would have covered most of my office wall. Why don't women learn that they must dress to suit the occasion. Men do. Whoever saw a policeman in white flannels or a chauffeur dressed hunting pink. Who but a woman goes to work dxesed as for a ball. In other words, must not dress in the champagne for breakfast style."

So enthusiastic is King Felsal, King of Iraq, about England and everything English, that he has engaged an English governess for his son and heir, who receives a regular English education, is taught to play tennis, and even wears Eton suits. The king takes a supreme interest in the country over which he has been chosen to rule, and spends much of his spare time on his estate at Kanniquin, 'where he owns large cotton plantations. .In London he has many friends, but it is only owing to the strong advice of his doctors that he can be induced to leave the many problems iwith which his country is beset.