AROUND THE TEA TABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 142, 18 June 1929, Page 11

AROUND THE TEA TABLE.

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST. (By SHIRLEY.) Exciting seems to be the question of Margaret- Bondtieki's costume at the King's Levee, when she has to appear as Minister of the Cabinet. "She would carry th&ai off quite well," said an Auckland lady, referring to the velvet suit and the cocked hat. The nervous officials may remember that such masculine style is no new tiling for women. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, that masterful lady is said to have introduced riding astride for a time, and the flappers of the period were inclined to cite Royal example as an excuse for male garb until father with the dog whip or the time threatened reprisals. However, the custom was not honoured oil court occasions, except that Mary Queen of Scots frequently attended the masques as a boy. There is every certainty that the new Minister of Labour will appear in the ordinary court costume of her sex. In any case, the iron etiquette that governs such occasions has sometimes been exaggerated. Perhaps worthy of revival now is an old story of early days when a pioneer dame had occasion to bow before viceroyalty. She somehow got it into her mind that evening dress was de rigeur, whatever the time of day. So, amid the conspicuous high necks, long sleeves, and large hats of-the period she made her devoirs that afternoon in ballroom rigout. Nor was she disconcerted at her sartorial solitude. No crowd psycholology was hers. "Everyone out or step but oor Jock," was evidently her complex. The other ladies did not happen to know the right thing—that was all. The discussion on cinema improvement for the young makes some of us reflect on that useful institution, the Saturday afternoon cinema. I know one which gives quite a lot for the threepence demanded from each little attendant. For no reason at all. for instance, but very agreeably, the show will begin with a play of variegated lights on tlie curtains and side walls. At another, ices are handed round at cheap rates, and sometimes a local newspaper gratis. And all this before the fortunate one has really begun on his threepence, two dramas at a penny each so to speak, and two, comics for a halfpenny each. And happy mother at home these wet days knows that Sis< and Buddie are safe in their nursev. They might be better in a beauti-1 ful large garden, of course, but.! | unfortunately, beautiful large gardens j these days cost beautiful large sums of! money. If the child is forbidden the cinema, as in some lands, it will be in the position of well-bred women when tiie art was first begun. A novelist, Ann Parish, writing of earlier times, shows ' us her heroine, hearing from dashing j young gentlemen of these dark places | where tiny plays quite without sinister : sex appeal were put on, and wishing that : "ladies might sometimes go and see for j themselves the scissors cutting out cloth : by itself in 'The Tailor's Dream."" and i then sighing, poor girl, because ladies j never will be able to go these ulaces.! A feminist lady of to-day declares that, she likes to go to crook plays because j always in the court scene two or three j women are among the jurors. She wishes i that all members of Parliament might , be forced to attend such scenes so that j the lessons might sink into their obdurate • souls. There are people who believe that the j world is going on very well because' roses still bloom in the old. old way. and no kitten has yet progressed far enough to neglect the play possibilities of its own tail. My own optimism always returns when I come upon modern young engaged persons still surrounding their love affair with fantastic imaginings, and then, wiping their innocent, heated brows, apologising for being '"goats." Helen, the other day, had been reading the drama "The Lady of the Lamp." She confessed that her own desire in youth had been to have her shadow . reverentially kissed, but this, for sortie reason or other, had never taken place.: (rdllant gentlemen had appeared before: her, but. though her shadow was always ; there, the Big Idea never occurred to' them. "I wilt" said her newly-made I "fiasco.but at that moment Helen's ' shadow was near the ceiling! A moment j later it was on the floor, and even the! Nightingale soldiers were not expected' to salute the linoleum. From one wallto another went that shadow, and then j mother came in to see what the noise ! was about, and as her shadow got mixed j up with Helen's, the fiasco thought she might think him rather a potty kind of son-in-law if he proceeded with the new ideal. Meanwhile Helen is planning a good scheme. She is arranging a picnic which will take them along a road above a gully of tree tops on which their long, branching shadows will rest. She is not afraid, however, of any gallant plunge downward. He has explained that nobody does that just after their screw has been raised. "How to make household scenes.'' That is the title of an article, mother and son scenes are described, and also the husband and wife affair. Formerly one necessary factor in a household scene was a father. Whatever character was introduced, he had to be the chief. Mother hadn't much show in those times. "Himself" is the word often ascribed to the father in some oldfashioned places, but mother seems never to have been described as "herself." When he wasn't "himself." father was "he." '"Is he home?" daughters would whisper, when mother commanded the hush-hush policy in domestic politics. When father had had a hard day at the office he was entitled to be lord and master at home, though if mother's day at home was hard, she was not entitled to go to the office and hush-hush the clerks there. Father is a good fellow now. but are the home-staying girls just changing their tyrant ? "Am I being the old-fashioned dad," thought an elder sister one day. when coming home from her office, she banged on the door to give her frivolous young sisters a hint for silence. "Is she home?" she heard them whisper in some awe. She has now resolved to pull up, and 'never become ''herself."