AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 25, 31 January 1928, Page 11

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTERKST

(By SHIRLEY.)

An Australian critic lias a few decided words to say regarding rescuing sea bathers in peril, and the myth of going down three times, for which rescuers wait with disastrous results. There seems to be an idea, he stalls, that persons drown in quite a leisurely manner, also that they hold up one finger for going down once, two when the second disappearance is due, and three as a solemn warning that they really mean it this time. Nothing of this process really occurs, and the affair is so like a person fooling a little below the waves that it might be almost worth while to go up to everyone who is really enjoying himself on a chance. If a bather acts as if he were saying:

"This is the life," then it is about time to do'that overhead stroke. Perhaps it might be better for holiday-makers to quit the fooling, but that would bo rather much to ask. The person ii: difficulties hasn't time to say "Helii, help," as in film land, or even always to throw up his arms. Just you see him or her a few inches below the surface of the water, and then you don't see him!

The rising price of milk creates n difficulty with the purveyor who will not leave less than half a' pint. "If there is a real shortage, why not let nie take less at least," says one consumer, objecting to the "rise." But the average milkman states that ho "is not supposed to give less"; the penny inside the milk jug for a lesser quantity is strictly speaking against the rule. However, I do know of a ladies' apartment house where 23 jugs are filled by the purveyor for ladies and 23 pennies taken therefrom first —quite a business. And when I think of these 23 small jugs, each separately filled, at some cost of time, I think not only of the milkman's kindness but of communism's thus prophesied failure. How often we are told of the advantages of combining, and shown how the pleasantness of individualism outweighs the cheapness!

School is again before the children at last, reminding one that tiij most applauded line in a really witty play acted once in January was that of a mother "Your holidays are far too long." The Americans are celebrating the return to desk and form by issuing separately published volumes-—no. not of "Lamentations, but of "The Proverbs of Solomon." These are to be given out to the children, just as we do our school journals. This, it seems, is to cure thieving. If it helps the next generation to understand what is in the Bible and what isn't, some good will be done. There are persons who still think "God helps those who help themselves," is a saying of the ex-king of Israel. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," is another mistake, but then any saying with sheep in it is bound to be attributed to Old-

or New Testament. In my extreme youth I remember being informed bv an older brother (not given I am afraid to exactness) that the distich "Soloman said in accents mild, spare the rod and spoil the child" was in his work, in these actual words, '"Be he boy or be she maid, a spanking is suitable, Solomon said." This, however, I discovered later, was a very free rendering of Lis views on the subject.

Those who recall our war davs. just before compulsory military service was introduced, may remember a much reported incident in a Southern citv. when a young man, who had been rejected by the doctor, declared that he would slap the face of the next girl who asked him "if he had cold feet t" and she did. And he did. The same characteristic touch was applied in Sydney the other day when an old lady stumbling into a bus caused two flappers to giggle. A young man waited till it was time for the old lady to go, whereupon thev giggled again. He helped the dame down, then, re-entering the vehicle, bestowed on each young woman a mark of his disesteem. "I've got a mother myself," he said, which excuse seemingly was accepted. Nevertheless, 1 hope the custom of slapping young women won't spread, for, after all, they may be giggling for the pure love of rri (Tcrli ncr • 9*9 The town of Hamilton is to do without the Sunday bath. So we hear, and the deprivation will be keenly felt. In the days of our regrettable grandfathers, it was one day a week for a bath. Now one day a week without a bath is felt to be rather terrible. So we move. Not so long ago there was an agitation in Dunedin over the discovery that the family in "The Cottars Saturday Night" could not have had that one weekly bath even. There was no time for it. if you notice in the poem. The literati brooded over the verses, but had to give up any hope that this function was followed as far at least as the children were concerned. Of course they might have had it oil another night. Only that Saturday evening, with our ancestors, was the inevitable time. The Hamiltonians can still have theirs on Saturday and every other day, but must follow their forbears in considering the I Sabbath dav taboo.