AROUND THE TEA TABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 298, 17 December 1930, Page 13

AROUND THE TEA TABLE.

(By SHIRLEY.)

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST.

She had lived in the back blocks under somewhat jioniinal guardianship. The result was her arrival in the city with a Butchers Book baby. She was . not, perhaps, quite as remorseful as a certain type of person would have liked; her idea was that, as slie was quite willing to be married, the will should be taken for the deed. However,, she is not .insensitive. She was found rather by a letter from her back blocks sister. "I suppose the next thing we'll be hearing of you," she wrote, "is that you\c taken to cigarettes." „/

If every woman in Xew Zealand would resolve to put out a shilling a week on Xew Zealand goods, even that amount would do much to solve the unemployment problem. So said a very' trustworthy lady lecturer lately. This shilling must be in conscious addition to what she already spends on Dominion goods—unknowingly. For instance, you sometimes can tell Xew Zealand shoes only, it is said, because tlicy give the best wear—and you can't know they give the best wear until they have surprisingly kept the rain out for some months'at least. The lecturer refened scathingly to persons who' purchase Paris models "several times removed," and as most of her listeners could not afford to purchase even near Paris models, we enjoyed the scathe. Women are the world's up to the extent of some SO per cent or so of goods. There is spreading from America to Australia a tendency to fasten buttons on oneself with mottoes, "Business is better," or "There is no depression." Perhaps New Zealand women some day will fasten on themselves buttons with the slogan, "Buy Xew Zealand goods," and I hope the buttons will not be made, somewhere outside!

A man nasi still "support" his wife, even though she chances to possess or earn more than he. She may spend all that on a fur coat and diamonds, and then come upon him for her bread and butter. If he cannot pay up, gaol must be his portion. According to some reports, unpleasant kinds of wives in Sydney have thus been victimising tholr husbands. What kind of kick they get out of h is not clear. They certainly do not get any money out of it, for Benedict cannot pay' up. What adds to the grievance for some of the defaulters is that they have to be tried in a Children's Court, though the man and his wife aren't children, and the policemen aren't. The Court in Sydney ■ is , neld downstairs, and when the husband is sentenced he disappears into a room still further down called by these husbands the "Black Hole of Calcutta." Thev,e was one woman in the original Blank Hole.-and no doubt every husband wisnes there were one woman in this,one, but eac 1 * wishes f^r * different one.

! The age of bronze is gone, and tho | blond age is coming. That is to say, u Jane does not wish to turn herself into a bronze -statue by the seaside, there is no compulsion from fashion for her in do so. •Pink and white, indeed, will be more the thing." Perhaps again we shall see, as- even New Zealand saw, not so long ago, young girls swathed in protective blue gauze veils in order to please a man that they had not yet met. Of course there was also twenty years ago the diving and swimming girl, but there certainly existed the young woman who was content at seaside and up country to view the world as if she were at the dim bottom of the sea. And perhaps she had ■ common sense. Sunshine nifty be, and is, healthy, but sunshine undoubtedly makes wrinkles. Those passionato eugenic persons who want us to have the supple bodies and all that of | savages," always forget that the primitive 'woman had only youth and old age. She was never a middle-aged woman. The gipsy also lias no chance of disdaining the dishonest carl after nineteen: or so, because by then the sun is getting l in its fine work. If our civilised Jane, however, veils licr head, she has still a chance to attract attention by her hands. These must also be bion'd and well manicured, and there is said to be a,fashion for,painting the nails purple and grepn, even as the Indian woman does with henna. A favourite i<l-a is a marble design with the owner's monogram on it.

.There/has been a discussion ' as to whether 1 a married woman should have men , friends. The average married woman of my acquaintance hasn't time in any-case, and if she had a .friend she Wouldn't waste him on matcship talk, -but promptly get him to help in the washing up. The idea seems to be that: the. married lady should have sucli a friend, innocently, of course, because we ai'e'no longer in "the stuffy Viatoviaj); age," but indeed that is just why'.she shouldn't. The "other man" must /have loomed large to our grand" mothers.- And yet often he would have been knocked dean out of the picture by that -'bored lady if only she had had a chance to meet, really meet,, other women.'She didn't want the other man. It was really a talk with other women that. slip . wanted,, Uiif how could they talk in that age, when there was nothing to talk about, no organisations, no societies', no clubs? Should the married women have men friends? The question really is: Has she time for the blighters ? They are certainly good at painting the clouds.. "with moonshine. But as she is no longer misunderstood and unappreciated, and gaoled ill her drawing room, the reign of Bertie the lady-killer is no more. In a sense other than the melodramatic one, he really has been ousted by the other woman.