AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 86, 12 April 1927, Page 20

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. (By SHIRLEY.) Curious how the real egg has fallen into disuse for Easter celebrations. No more does the mother secretly hardboil a few, and put them back" in the nest as a "surprise." Jane and Jimiuy get the imitation from the shops. Is it because the bad is so little known nowadays, that the houskeeper does not like to waste any? Formerly in every dozen, one at least was expected to be a Judas, and sometimes there was a doubtful Thomas also. (But in that case you went back with them reproachfully to the grocer) Tf he disclaimed responsibility, you could still save a few for decorative purposes.

But even Sarah Bernhardt, who lived rather in tllose days, did not paint oggs at Easter. She painted her dugs instead, smooth-skinned animals e\idently. green, blue, and crimson. The Brighter Dog idea was allowed to last until the weekly bath after Easter Momlav made Fulo normal once more.

Something of the old sex preference remains in the fact that Auckland ladies pay a little less for a weekly ferry ticket than do men. Evidently, the idea is that we won't tempt the sea more than can be helped, while if we had special concessions on the trams, it would he too much for u<. "Row me over the ferry, Douglas. Douglas Gordon." is the old song, and the Auckland Gordons oblige for a decreased financial consideration. There is further jwetie precedent for these special feminine rates in the case of the Scotch boatman who was asked to take on board the, young chieftain eloping with Lord Vllin's daughter, fee offered being a silver pound, whatever that may be. You may remember how lie answered very civilly that he would oblige by takinjr the "winsome leddy" over for nothing. Nothing quite ns good as this happens to us sroing weekly to and from Devonport. However, winsome a* we are, the ticket man still demands that half-crown. On the other hand our voyage is not likely to end as disastrously as that other ferry trip, when the ferryman, gallantly but somewhat nnprofessionally, went out in a raging storm. . . .

I like that story of the Manawatu family, six children in nil, who have saved three hundred, which is earning interest at the rate of twelve pounds a year. It seems education authorities in that district are anxious to revive the old custom of the child's tin savings hank (which in old fashioned melodrama the cruel father often broke open, to hisses from the audience. > One State department introduced this custom in a special way over twenty years and also the idea of depositing stamps on cards. It did not push the idea, however, because, as everyone knows, when a State official really think" out anything pood, there is monrninp in his department, and the matter is hushed up. However, Manawatu, anyway, is trying to bring back Thrift with a capital T. All the same, no one points out that if that three hundred were put with

the Public Trustee, that official would enter into a good scheme, and save three pounds a year more lor this enterprising family.

Two wedding rings, one ior day, and another, a better one ror evening wear, are proposed as a new fashion ior English people. Will it take, and will we even have half dozen wedding rings to suit all occasions r 1 doubt it. There is still something In every English woman of that Lucy Desborough who married accidentally with her old nurse's wedding ring, refused later to give it back to that pleading dame. The ring that made her Mrs. Richard Feverel was the ring, and no substitute would do. However, better six wedding rings and only one hu.-ban<i than one wedding ring and six husbands, as seems to be the way in some countries alleged - lv civilised.

We have had n lot of rain lately, mostly unexpected. But is there not always something unexpected about rain,—a feeling that It ought not to be (unless of course we have crops.) There is good psychological reason for this sense of surprised annoyance when it '"comes on again." According to scientists, —and Genesis rather supports tlieir ideas, —rain was unknown in the world before the upheaval known as the Flood, which changed earth's constitution. Sun and wind and other phemonena had always been, but rain is comparatively of yesterday. The preFlood housewife had not to worry about a good drying day. It is true, there was a general mist about to keep things going, but as it generally clung close to tho ennh. she could get the clothes line well above it. Noah's mother could go away for the day with an easy mind, but her iiaughtcr-in-latv must often have wished for the good old times.

No, this does not explain why the modem woman still, atavistic-ally, pulls tho clothe? line well up. Thus I answer a man inquirer who is stirred with this idea. But it does explain why wo are all, children especially, a little astonished by the quite common phemomenon of ruin. You see the unconscious racial mind has been used to sun, wind, etc for billions of years, but to rain only for a million or so. and a few millions of years are quite a trifle to that kind of mind.

This explains also why the world was so stupendously Into in usinpr umbrellas, against rain that is. .Against the snn they came in quite early. Bin rnin somehow was not tnen into aencunt. After the flood, no one for ages thought of putting up a shade in a storm and going out under it. They just went out and pot wet. Even up to two hundred years ago. western people did not put up umbrella? against the rain. If they were rich, they jumped into sedan chairs, if poor they patiently had rheumatic fever an.l died. ll was all riszht. • The racial mind, yoa see. hadn't realised that rain had come. Then ahout n hundred and fifty year* acjo. the idea penetrated into the unconscious racial mind of one man, hut he had a pretty rouph time, under his umbrella, until the minds of other men also realized that it was a.« reasonable to protect oneself against rain as against heat and cold.