AROUND THE TEA TABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 282, 28 November 1929, Page 12

AROUND THE TEA TABLE.

(By SHIRLEY.)

It is quite a mistake to run down the new morality of the Russians! Poor things they have their feelings, and resent an imputation just as we do. Thus lately, a well merited rebuke was delivered by an official lady in a Russian matrimonial bureau, to whom a man came in asking for a marriage license, and somehow letting out that he was already a husband. "Then what do you mean coming in-here?" asked the girl in pure-minded indignation, "do you think we have no morals, we, of the New Age ? Do you think we will countenance immorality as the world says we do?" The simple peasant was departing, crushed, when she added. "Go right into the room next door, and get your divorce, before you dare show your face here again." The man in a few minutes reappeared, reformed into bachelorhood once more, and soon collected a marriage license to add to his divorce paper. * * # »

It is sad to reflect that Homeland people do not consciously eat New Zealand apples. At least this is sometimes so, if there is truth in the story of the lady who, asked whether the fruit she was enjoying was Canadian, replied, "No, Australian," and when informed that it was really from New Zealand answered: "Well, that's Australia, isn't it?" How shall we get firmly fixed into the minds of our British cousins that we are really lone and apart? Would resuscitating the use of the globee be any good? Or should we arrange a spectacular aerial flight every week or so to prove that between Wellington and Sydney there are really many "loping leagues of sea?" Perhaps a new race of poets might help us. Very early in her career, England got it firmly established by poetry that she was an island—in fact rather wrongfully because to substantiate this, Scotland had to be ignored. In fact, according to the continental lands, 6lie was rather tiresome about it —her "story" was glorious because it was "rough and island," her virtues were peculiarly "island," attributable to that Sea surround to which allusion was bo often made. I cannot recollect that our own "island" poets have dwelt much on the fact that New Zealand is an island, and that our hospitality, good humour, and sporting spirit under misfortune are all attributable to the fact that we are islanders descended from islanders, and so doubly gifted.

Eggs are to be graded once more. We are to return perhaps to the old days of new laid eggs, fresh eggs, warranted, and then, last, merely eggs—that is the meaning of the ABC labels to be put on them. In old days you took the plain ' eggs at your own risk, and cookery books recommended breaking each separately L into a cup so that one Judaa one should 1 not corrupt the dozen. The advantage ; of grading was that if you had pur- : chased under the "New Laid" or even J- "Fresh" label you were entitled to take ' the evil fragments back to the grocer ! in a cup, and with this, as evidence of 1 good faith, claim a substitute. Some ' years ago England, in the throes of the egg problem, contrived a. system by • which an egg claiming to be reputable had a blue band painted round its waist, and the date of its birth, the value of this certificate being modified by the occasional discovery that a purchase bore a date which had not yet quite arrived. So sarcastic housewives used to ask for eggs "that needn't have sashes on, thank you," and ordinary grading was resumed. According to recent reports beef also is to be graded in England "Select," "Prime," and "Good." Lower than "good" they will not go. Such was the recent decision of Smithfield and Birmingham. We content ourselves with grading the humble egg to suit all purses, and maybe all tastes, for perhaps even her© there are persons resembling the holiday-making Cockney boy, who complained of his first country egg, "It ain't got no flaviour."

We hear of times not being changed, but there is a proof that they are. At the first eucceessful balloon flight in 1784, the "balloon descended near Ware to the fear of some labourers working near by, who fled. A young woman, however, bravely seized the rope the aeronaut had flung out." The balloon, to her, was more fearsome than any aerial machine could have been to us even twenty years ago. Yet this she did. But didn't wake up to find herself famous! There was no portrait of herself in the papers, or interview showing her views either on breakfast foods ot science. Even her name has not come down to posterity. Perhaps her parents were too much ashamed of her unladylike act, and had the whole Bcandal hushed up. About the same period, however, was born Miss Mary Linwood, of Leicester, —her very name is a soothing symphony—who became famous through a piece of needlework. It was of the picture kind, £3000 being offered for it. The glory of being a good needlewoman brought her fame, and the admiration of Napoleon, who conferred upon her the freedom of Paris, and also free transport through France. Increase in fares did not trouble Mary when she hailed whatever stood for public trams in those days. No wonder the young women of those far-off times were willing to sit at home and sew. There was always a chance, you know, whereas tackling mysterious appearances out in the open merely got you nowhere.