AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 79, 3 April 1928, Page 12

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

HATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST.

(By SHIRLEY.)

It happened some years ago. so there is no harm resuscitating the incident. He was a sole teacher in a back blocks school, and as keen on cultivating, the garden soil as the minds of his pupils, keener perhaps. Anyway, he had a tendency to combine the two. He had one growing fear, however. He believed that the Inspector of Nuisances had a far-seeing eye on him, and would be down on him any old day to discover codlin moth in his two apple trees, phylloxera in his scrap of vinery, too much blackberry and too little antiparasite contrivances. At last the official appeared. "I am the inspector," was almost his first remark. The pedagogue thereupon took him round, trying to soften his hard heart with tales of horticultural difficulties. The listener seemed a little at a loss, but presently inquired, "Where is the VI. Standard?" Teacher in turn felt some wonder that an Inspector of Nuisances should want to see the VI. Standard. The VI. Standard was not a nuisance. On the contrary, she was an extremely intelligent girl and quite coming on in grafting. However, he humoured the man and presently they came upon her thus usefully employed. It was only when the inspector began to put to her irrelevant questions as to Cancer and Capricorn, Julius Caesar and Logarithms, that the awful truth dawned upon the gardenerpedagogue. He expected a poor report, but the inspector seemed to think his idiosyncrasy not a bad one, and let him off lightly. . .

Roll from you, put on dab of butter, fold, roll outward again! How many of us have learnt this ritual for puff pastry in eardly days? The pastrymaker, like the poet, is born, not made. In fact, pastry is the poetry of the culinary art, and has its geniuses. Not all of us belong to the genius class. We will not need to rely on the home art any longer, however, for we can now buy uncooked puff pastry in at least one shop of Auckland. The lady informs me that she started this idea two months ago, 'and, as far as she knows, it is not usual. She has no reason to feel dissatisfied with the result of her innovation. Happy times now ahead of us who are of the heavy-handed brigade! "Doing a lot better now, old girl," says friend hugband, as he tackles dessert. Will the wife tell?

So, the Convention of the National Assembly in Sydney has rejected the proposal that the State Parliament should impose a tax on spinsters and bachelors between the ages of 25 and 55, that is to say, if the income exceeds J £250 a year. There is perfect equality for you anyway. There is the assumption, for instance, that till well past 50 our sex is quite to blame for its spinster condition. We are like "Charley's Aunt." "I.was a naughty girl this morning," says the old lady, when apologising for having refused an offer. The tax, on bachelors only* I believe, » doing very well in Italy, but Italy fe not Australia. Bachelors were taxed in ancient Borne, and, indeed, had an unpleasant time of it in other ways. They are not taxed in Eastern countries, be-' cause it is scarcely possible for them to exist there, except by being holy, and standing on one foot for a year or ttyo. which is, after all, more troublesome than marriage. The race is not un-; known in New Zealand —in fact, one South African lady said this was a land of old bachelors. There is one phenomenon rare with us, that is the rich old bachelor, a type so common and useful in novelettes. Our representatives aje usually up the backblocks, and well below the £250 limit, so that the Treasury would not reap much.

Australia, too, has many of this type, and their ways of domestic management arousa much interest. Those that make their homes along the Murrumbidgee River are usually of the kind that believe in simple living. A kerosene tin, for instance, does for their simple and very casual laundry. There is one, however, who has loftier notions. It is boasted of him that he has a weekly washing day, "just like a woman." Before going in for his pension, which he appears to do every week, he ties all his spare belongings to a stout Ashing line, which is secured to a tree trunk. Then he swings his little lot out and the kindly river spends twelve hours or so in doing the rest. This is*~called "being like a woman."

All over the world, however, man 1* more and more expressing his views on housewifery and the home. As woman (allegedly) abandons that institution, he interferes with it the more. Quite boldly he utters the most devastating sentiments. Says a recent writers."For the man, home is or ought to be the place to which he can escape from the more or less artificial postures of public life. The ideal home is the place wheffe you can drop formalities, shuffle into slippers, eat in your shirt sleeves, if you feel so inclined, and, in general, give free play to the impulses of the natural man. It is where ,you don't have to be punctual for meals, or anything else. You have had enough of punctuality all day. It is where organisation and efficiency should show their ugly faces as little as possible, where tidiness and system arid the doctrine of a place for everything and everything in its place are abominations. Are we not sated with neatness and orderliness and schedules and filing systems in th<s office? The change into old, comfortable and perhaps disreputable clothes, is the outward and visble sign of an inner transformation. The ideal home, as a mail pictures it, is a city of refuge, a castle of freedom, informality and irresponsibility." All very well, but this feral New Man will have to marry an equally: office-sated lady before he will be permitted all this rampaging about.

AT HOME AND ABROAD, j Women gave up wearing long white gloves for dancing during the war years, states a London writer. This winter the drapers report & big demand for them, and a society woman told me to-day that the presence of the younger Royalties at dances is responsible. "Few of us wear gloves," she said, "except when the Prince or the Duke and Duchess of York are likely to be in the ballroom. There is a kind of unwritten law that women should wear long gloves if Royalty is present. They have been to a great many dances and • parties this autumn, and so white gloves have been needed." The Duchess of York wears gloves which reach nearly to her shoulders. She has very pretty hands. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York rarely dance without gloves. » * * *

The pretty fashion of wearing a little slip-on jacket over an evening frock was originated by Lady Louia Mountbatten, if memory serves me aright, writes our London correspondent. One of the earliest examples with which she initiated the now prevailing mode was a. charming affair of black sequins, catcffing the light at every turn, and glittering like black armour. The jacket was worn over the simplest little dinner frock of black satin. But such simplicity! Lady Louis, incidentally, has a marked predilection for coat-of-mail effects. She looks especially striking in the gold "armour" mesh that is one of her favourite fabrics.