AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1926, Page 19

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

I ■ MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. (By SHIRLEY.) When is a public tearoom not a tearoom, but an exhibition for dusting and sweeping? That is the annoyed question asked by one overseas visitor who objects to take her collation while the dust of a wielded broom is floating about just near her. The failing indicated is, I am afraid, a purely New Zealand one. In oilier countries, -the floor is swppt at I really off times, but here off times ar.i ' sometimes half-past twelve and half-pa sit three. And there is no rebuking the perpetrator of the "outrage." as it has I been called. "Don't move," sang out reassuringly the lady with the broom I when an American lady rose pointedly as the implement came nearer. "Oh, don't move," sang out the sweeper reassuringly. She indicated that the visitor was not at all disturbing her. • * • •' "We of New Zealand are placid about j the matter. We merely lift our feet ' absently as broom or vacuum arrangement come nearer, and put them down again when it withdraws. After all, the sweeper has her point of view. PerI haps We are a crumbier people than the '. rest of the world. Possibly if she did I not work her broom many times a day, the eight of the floor at the end of the day would astonish us. At least so one •waitress has informed mc, threatening some day not to do anything in the sweeping line for eight hours or so, and then ask us to see what it looks like. Tn the old days the problem did not arise. Our mothers and grandmothers were the scavengers. They obligingly swept out rooms with their trains, sometimes taking a very small tea table with them also. These days, however, are no more, woman's dress is no longer a vacuum cleaner, so tea drinkers suffer in silence.' • » • • Why do barbers orate so much? From him of Seville onward, it has always been so. and now, it seems, the lady ; barber is displaying the same tendency. I She talks. Worse than she flirts. At : least so it is seemingly in Honolulu, where some of the barbers are ladies, also of Japanese nationality. The Japanese Barbers' Association has now passed a rule against tliU flirtatious tendency. As a local paper puts it: "He who' would while away an hour or so in the depths of the (great leather chair with an intriguing samptasu (evidently this means the lady barber) administering his every want, flattering. joking, teasing, must go elsewhere. The eluirm of relaxation in the atmosphere of Japanese conviviality has been ordered to go." • • • j Someone points out. however, that many things have been ordered to go without going, just as many oiher things have been ordered to stop without stopping, but the Japanese woman is. after all, by temperament a lawabiding little, creature. She will stop flirting now that she' has bppn warned, presuming sho knows when slip is flirt- | ins, for women often think they aren't i when they are. and they are when they j aren't. Altogether it is a dink-ult inaum- ! to have a law about.

' ynthia lias been listening to all this talk, about criminality and heredity, I and states that in her opinion it is not at all a bad thing to have a lawless person in one's ancestry. She states that her own eyesight, for instance, according to her oculist, is as bad as it can be. and declares that she owes this to her male forbears who slippered about studies and libraries poring over books, and to her female forbears who, instead of jazzing. 01 whatever was the equivalent in those times, did fancy work and lace trimmings. That Cynthia's eye-; sight is not even worse she attributes' to the fact that her great grandmother ! fell from grace and married someone who afterwards turned out. to tbe dis- j tress of the family, to be a burglar, j • » _ _

"A burglar?" I cried, duly shocked. "Yes. thanks be. You sec a burglar has to keep his eyesight good in order to sec the policeman coming, and to this man is due the fact that I am not at this moment saying how happy 1 am in thp Jubilee Institute. 7 "But what about the tendency to burgle?" I ,vked anxiously. "Oh, that gets diluted £oing through so many forbears, and when it reaches mc merely becomes business enterprise," answered Cynthia, nipping up my best parasol and making off with it. I have not seen her since.

But. before she went, she had talked of boys and criminality, a favourite topic of the times, and she narrated an anecdote of a Xew Zealand town. Dare I repeat it? Will it bo read with a pure mind, and no Rabelaisian touches. You promise? Well, then, here it is: The homeward train of this bunch of schoolboys passed over a bridge, underneath which there is often a cart going up or down. On the chance of such a vehicle being just underneath, one or other of the lads, when the bridge Is approached, rushed along out of the compartment, hastily pulls the string, and then flies back to his place, to watch gravely the amazement of the carter below when he gets his bath. Fortunately for themselves, the lads are of "good parentage," so this is only "boyish mischief," which undoubtedly it only is.

"This Freedom" is over for A. S. M. Hutchinson. His bride is young and clever, and is a composer. Evidently, like her husband, she is fond of the seasons, for to match his "If Winter Comes," is her song, '"Twas June." The secret was so well kept that not even the housekeeper knew it. and many persons did their best to persuade the shy and reserved author tliat lie was not engaged when lie was, so certain had they long been that this confirmed bachelor would not submit to the usual destiny.

However, some of us may remember that most charming novel of all that he wrote before he got staccato and became •jdeafied. "Once Aboard the Lugger," it was called. "Once Aboard the Lugger and the girl is mine," was the motto of the hero, and this motto has now nt last become tho axiom of the once bachelor novelist. Let us hope she will get him back to his earlier style before he fatally discovers that he had a mission. Let us hope also that his wife continues her occupation, and convinces this anti-feminist that suicide and child neglect need not necessarily be the result.

A great British centre of fashion came into being recently, when the Duchess of Portland opened the British Model I House in Regent Street. One had only I to see the model dresses shown (writes! a " Daily Chronicle " representative) to ! know at once that the idea that only j the French understand the art of dress- | ing is as old-fashioned as the leg-of- ' mutton sleeve. The dignified and buau-1 tiful premises which will serve in future i as the home of dresses intended to reveal : the characteristic beauty of English- < women were crowded with people deeply i interested in the new experiment. Men I whom one would have expected to see I only at political meetings were there, ! and very many women who have hitherto bought all their frocks in Paris . had come to see what British manufae- ; t-urers can do to help them to dress I well. In their determination to accept j no dictation from Paris, thp organisers j of the British Model House have gone to the 13th century for inspiration, and the dresses shown had the high I collar, the wide graceful sleeve, and the free undulating hem line typi- ] cal of the period. The charm of the ' 13th century has been adapted to modern ! needs, and tho outstanding features of the British collection are the semi-fitted waisted coat and dress, the high, almost normal waist-line, and the high collar and broad sleeve. Ornamentation is chiefly on the. collar aud the sleeve, and the embroideries used are effective in colour. Delicate silks, chiffons, velvets, and brocades of British manufacture, crepe de chines, georgettes, and satins, enriched with lovely embroidery, made their first appearance, and among the novelties were the bolero coat for afternoon and evening wear, and Russian embroideries. j