THE TACHYPHAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 255, 28 October 1929, Page 6

THE TACHYPHAGE.

Although there is in Auckland a generosity amongst employers which permits a liberal allowance of time for the food of employees to be found and eaten, this generosity is freely misused, with the result that of all bodily ailments indigestion is the most common. It is not the clerk who rushes off at the first second of the luncheon interval, or the employer who does the like, that takes most time over a.meal. They both usually value more the spare time after food is eaten than the time actually passed in eating. In New York a club has been formed to encourage a proper use of (and possible extension of) the dinner hour, both for those who dine from twelve to two or those who dine from six to eight, and particularly for those who take any food during a break in business hours. An American doctor has devised a name f6r the man who hurries over his food and calls him "the anxious tachyphago"—"the worried quick-eater." He says of such: "He wakes in the morning with a tight feeling in his stomach at the thought of what is before him, lies in bed too long thinking about his troubles, hurriedly gets through his dressing, toys with his dull breakfast, and rushes off to the office. At every delay oil the journey the stomach discomfort reminds him of its presence, and a morning spent in telephoning, interviewing and correspondence harasses him still further. Home to lunch, he > bolts his food, drains his drink at one gulp, and throughout the meal crumbles bread and chews at it nervously. Then to the office again, ho throws himself once more into the press of business, and ends the working day with a hurried dinner so as to rush off to a theatre. This sort of thing continues year after year, its victim constantly denying the possibility of anything going wrong with his health, until quite suddenly the suggestion of an ulcer or growth in his stomach brings the 'tachyphage,' a little more anxious than usual, to the physician. Unless he is lucky enough to meet someone who really understands the sort of life he leads he may quite well be sent away with merely an alkaline powder and some pious hopes about his diet." The only treatment required, says the doctor, is a dose of charcoal before the heaviest meal of the day- and a general slowing down of movement of all kinds during the dinner hour, which, he says, would be none the worse for being two hours. Auckland is slow, casual and unhurried, compared with London and New York, but observation will convince you that Aucklanders are largely gobbler* who stoke rather than dine, who take large mouthfuls, avoid mastication and in place of enjoying delicately-flavoured food are intent only on "getting it down." Highly-civilised people have invariably made of eating something of a ceremonial, and without the greediness of Qontinental gourmets there is wisdom in a deliberate j recognition of the value of slow and careful feeding. There are few things in life, apart from disease, fire and accident, that are the better for | haste" or call for "rush tactics." —H.A.Y.

THOSE PULL-ON HATS. All may or may not have been quiet on the western front at the time. I cannot remember, so engrossed was I with thoughts about pull-on hats and their wearers. All Ido know is that you never can tell what is beneath the fashionable, close-fitting pull-on hat as its trim wearer passes by, or sits beside you in tram, train, bus or boat. In trams, for instance, she often settles down to a book and I am frequently guilty of looking to see if her taste in reading -can tell me a little of what is under the hat. I generally turn away in disappointment, for what do I see? Again and again some love-sick novel is in her hands. The style of relaxation that should be insufferable after our teens, except, of course, when the theme is in the hands of a Galsworthy or some other worthy.

Still, I continue to risk a chiding look from mj r fellow passenger while my glance steals over a page or to the title of her book. Arid I have been rewarded—rewarded with shock that has taken me from the depths of gloom to a state of iutensa amusement so that I have to turn my face to the window the more fully to appreciate my "find." She was a lady not young, not old, but with a slight severity of expression which might hav.> meant a rigid adherence to the conventions. She wore a close-fitting, drooping little hat which probably prevented her from noticing my glance. She read as if entranced. And I suppose the last thing I expected to see when I peeped was "All Quiet on the Western Front." Mentally I approved her moral courage. Bans or no bans, she would read it, and in a tram car, too. Why look for solitary corners, as many less courageous might? I risked some further glances, but*all I could see were inoffensive words, such as "softly" or "sniper," and a few mild conjectures "as to whether the writer could reach a certain place safely. By that time the book was closed, and I had to alight wondering just exactly why it should have been closed so unexpectedly. All may not have been so quiet on the western front as I had read! —J.H.

QUEENS ON PARADE. The great heart of Wellington city saw its strangest sight for many a day on a recent afternoon when two selfrpossessed dairy cows came leisurely strolling down Molesworth Street into Lambton Quay. One was a brindle and one was a brown; they may have strayed from Ariki-toa or from the slopes of Northland; anyhow, there they were, deliberately pacing side by side down the tramway track, their udders swaying, contemplatively chewing an imaginary cud, or quid, or whatever it is that cows chew. Nothing perturbed them; everyone and everything reverently made way for them. When a rash motorist honked his raucous honk one of them turned and fixed him with a pair of large, calm eyes and then dismissed him from her mind as a thinrr of no importance. Oh, for bovine temerity! °

The pair descended the slope past Parliament House, ignoring all the curious folk on the footpaths and all the traffic around them. They have been a couple of Tinakori Road dames going to town for shopping and afternoon tea. Brindled Phyllis looked Parliament House up and down, and, mayhap, remarked to her companion, "That's' the place, Gladys, where they make the laws that build up this glorious, young Dominion." Gladys, shifting her cud, snorted: "Don't you believe it, my dear. Not on your life! It's we who make' the country what it is. Politicians be blithered! Where would they be but for. us?"

There was a policeman on duty at the Hotel Cecil cornel; of Molesworth Street, where it meets Lambton Quay. People wondered what the Law would do about those strollers on the tramway track. But the Force is always equal to an emergency. He looked for one long moment, then, with splendid presence of mind, he turned his back on them and contemplated the far Orongorongo Ranges.

Phyllis and Gladys Continued their stroll. They crossed Lambton Quay, avoided by everything on wheels or afoot, had a look at the Big Wooden Building and went on towards the Railways head office. The last we heard of them was a frantic shrieking of railway engines shunting at the head of the line. Gladys and Phyllis held up that ■section of the traffic awhile, and then they vanished from present ken. Maybe some of the railway staff rounded them in. for tea; at anyrate, it is likely Northland's milk supply was a bucket short that evening. But the impressive thing about it all was the reverent courtesy the populace showed the suburban, queens of the dairy, on their town stroll. In the public's respectful demeanour there was an echo of the tribute that came from one of Australia's Brownings once upon a time: Let us mutter blessings o'er her, Let us love her like a mother. Let us house her like a brother, Throne her like the Calf of Aaron, Prize her like the Itose of Sharon— Her— the Cow! .— TANGIWAI.