AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 258, 31 October 1928, Page 12

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST,

(By SHIRLEY.)

Hawkers are not likely to decrease in summer time. The long days only encourage them. Few of us suffer, however, as do the ladies in one Australian State where the average is said to be about six a day, twelve being known. The " Woman's Mirror" gives an instance of an ingenious Australian hawker who used this fact to his own advantage. "Oh, I'm the different hawker," he vouchsafed, and hauled out for sale a notice, "Hawkers need not call here." We buy rabbits in New Zealand, but so far none of the sellers have descended to the ruse of a Sydney man, who includes one live rabbit in his store. This is to give the impression that the others have just been killed, and not known cold storage. He offers to sacrifice the live bunny before the housewife's eyes, but naturally enough, she prefers not to see the dispatch, and purchases one of the others.

A New Zealand lady has been giving her experiences in Belgium and Holland, which experiences included some visits to the ex.-Crown Prince and Princess. Now this lady, a noted Esperantist, had appeared somewhere in fancy dress as Queen of Esperantists, and this she wore at some festivity. Thereupon the ex.Royalties made out that as she was Queen and they only prince and princess —and "ex" at that —she must choose the subjects for conversation, while they would submit to her every dictate, which shows that humour is now perhaps being developed in the Teutonic mind. ~ The film, it seems, is helping oil Esperanto somewhat, as in Belgium, for instance, two languages have to be used on the screen—that is to say, no sooner has the caption said "Came the Dawn," the screen is alway saying this, in Flemish, but it has to repeat the assertion in French, and so on, which must be tedious even to this phlegmatic race. Songs sung in Esperanto, anyway, don't sound German.

I take candidates' words for it that they appreciate us women voters highly This argues great heroism on their part, for we have added sadly to their election cares. I can well imagine a candidate just now addressing himself, "Woe worth the day they got the vote, for this means for us matinee performances besides the evening work." It's the matinee, we know, that is the last straw for the actor. Not that I suggest any of our candidates are actors, only that they must sometimes feel as if they were, even "more so," for all their nights are "first nights," wearing nerves to a frazzle. I was at a ladies' afternoon meeting lately, and in the midst of the speaker's peroration about how glad he was to see us, I dropped'my umbrella with a fearful bang. He could have smacked me. On another occasion I asked the ""candidate a question that he couldn't answer, I knew he couldn't, and he also wished I was his wife. This feat I followed up by inquiring as to his land policy, whereupon he gave me such a black look. It was not that he hadn't a policy. He had a beauty, it was four o'clock and he wanted to get home and prepare himself for the evening's horrors. They are angels, these candidates if they don't secretly agree with that lady who has stood up at some Auckland meetings to tell the speaker that she "doesn't believe In women in politics for the gentlemen should support the ladies in their own homes." I am sure it went against the grain for one candidate to reply, "Madame, if any gentleman asks you to marry him, you are at liberty to accept him." But he did say it, the dear fellow.

"Certain residents petitioned against a shop being permitted in their street." Curious this dislike of that establishment "between the wind and our nobility." Yet a shop has to be tidy and window-cleaned. It can neither be a breeding place for germs nor for gossip. And can all houses say the same? Again the shop is useful in a lighthouse kind of way. It does not hide its light behind curtains selfishly drawn after nightfall, but shines out so that the belated traveller does not miss the curbstone as may happen otherwise when the street lamps are scarce. Of course there are shops and shops, but with potted arum lilies between joints of meat, even the butcher tries to attain the higher viewpoint. Surely the outcry against shops in our street is founded on a tradition of the old uninspected times, when also these establishments were boarded up,at night, and existed therefore for the mere sordid purpose of selling. But now that a shop is more than a shop—a street attraction, a lamp, and a discouragement to evil doers, the embargo should be raised.