ON BEING UNTIDY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 2 (Supplement)

ON BEING UNTIDY

By Cyrano

AS I was standing at a corner of a busy city street talking to a friend the other day, I noticed a woman I knew crossing a few yards away. She had a long official envelope in her hand. As she Teached the pavement on the other side she tore open the envelope, glanced at the contents, put the letter somewhere and deliberately dropped the envelope on the ground. Now this woman is a person of education. She is always dressed with taste, and everything about her is tidy. She wouldn't dream of going abroad with her hair mussed up, or her etockings laddered, or a shoe down at heel. Yet in the middle of a fine morning she coolly dropped a large envelope in a city street —her own city, mark you. An Embarrassment A few days later I saw a similar incident in the main street of the same city. Two youths came out of a milk bar carrying some sort of ice cream in packets. They tore off the coverings and dropped them amid the crowd. Their offence was lees than the woman's because ehe was older and more responsible, and because the "contrast between her appearance and her act of ugliness was more striking. Xow no one, not even my beet friends —and I have some who I arc sure would et-and by me through quite a lot —would say I was a tidy man. lam not. Indeed I have borne such a reputation for untidinees that I can imagine some folk hooting-with laughter at the thought of my preaching a sermon on the subject. Yet I felt embarrassed when I saw those pieces of paper thrown away. The envelope incident em'barrassed me acutely. I felt I was looking at something improper; it was almost as if the ' woman had started to undrese. A couple of men were standing on the opposite corner. I saw them look at her and I wouldn't be surprised if they felt as I did. Why do some people behave in public as they wouldn't behave in private? This woman, I imagine, keeps a very tidy house. She wouldn't drop envelopes on tbe floor of a room and leave them there, or on her garden path. Why did she do it in a street? I think there ie this to be said for her and the two young men that they probably either aimed at the gutter or had the gutter

in mind, a gutter being to them a place for rubbish. But the gutter of one's own garden is not a place where one drops stuff like this. The explanation is that there are two set«= of values, one for one's home ami one for public places, and there shouldn't be. I recently had another little experience of the kind. I was talking to a man in a carpeted office, not his office. He lit a cigarette and dropped the match again deliberately, on the carpet though there were ashtrays about. Would he have done that in his own home? I doubt it. If he had. his wife or daughter would have spoken sternly. Why should he commit a grossly untidy act in another man's office? However, I am told there are people who stub cigarettes on their host's furniture, so dropping a spent match on a carpet may perhaps be considered veniaL Untidiness and Grubbiness There are both degrees and kinds of untidiness, and there is a great difference between untidiness and grubbiness. I may etill be an untidy person, but I don't think I am a grubby one. There are places where untidinees of any kind is obviously wrong. A church is one; barracks are another. In a home, however, strict tidiness may become a vice. All, or most of us, know th«; type of housewife who tidies and cleans until her house looke like an institution, not a home, and must feel like one to its inmates. There is no comfort in it, no homeliness, no sense of being lived in. A certain amount of disorder in household belongings is sweet; it suggests personality. A man's den or etudy may be untidy to the outsider, but it isn"t untidy to him. He knows where most things are and he prefers it like that, so why chide him and set about disarranging his disorder? There is, of course, a limit in all things; Watson was probably justified in being critical of some of Holmes' domestic habits, such as, if I remember rightly, pinning unanswered correspondence to the wall with a knife, and keeping tobacco in the toe of a slipper. But one difference between the living room of a private house and the lounge of a hotel is that the lounge is much tidier. Grubbiness is the worst form of untidiness. Dirt has l>een defined as matter out of place. If I choose to sur-

round myself with piles of books oil papers in no particular order, that m dirt, because it is not really matter out: of place. If, however, I work with m? desk coated with dust, the remnants of the last meal around me, and mv old l gardening trousers hanging on a "chair beside me, then I am grubby and deserr* to be talked to. Men, I think, may fairf* claim a right to a certain amount of untidiness, but not to grubbiness. P w . sonally I hate dirt; I don't mean that I hate grubbing in a garden, or beachcombing; I like them both. Nor have I'a passion for scrubbed floors and fectants. What I don - t like is matter? out of place—evidence of the morning ' shave left about, dirty bits of paper and ; cigarette butt* on the floor, grit under my hand on a table, and plates and cup* not cleared away. - Cigarette smoking is. perhaps, response; fble fur more grubbiness than anv habit that has spread of recent times. "(Ye§ I smoke.) Cigarette butts can be poiilively offensive, especially in the cold," unromantic light of next morning. Wont? sight of all, perhaps, is congealed bacoa fat on a plate that should have bees washed and put away long before. I am astonished at the number of people who drop cigarette ends about indoon. ' Indeed. I am sometimes invited to "dropit on the floor." Litter In Public Places. Grubbiness can extend beyond oneV J home. This form of untidiness in public places is a curse in this country. 'Wnj* should one throw away rubbish in a/? street or a park when one wouldn't do it in one's own place T Street is a.i communal garden path, a park a com-) munal garden. Would we tolerate k'-\ litter of tram tickets on the path leading up to our front door? I remember the beauty of Christchurch's Avon oil a~ warm day in spring; numbers of workeri were sitting on the river banks in tie-; lunch hour. I couldn't help noticing that lunch papers were left lying here "id there on the grass, and some were floating down stream. If anything is particularly well calculated to mar tke beauty of the Avon it is brown paper on its bosom. 21a Christehurch. however, is no ■want than other places; it may be better than most. Every town in New Zealand has something to learn in this respect, and holiday places deserve the same coasiderate treatment aa citv streets tad! parks. The New Year is an appropriate time for good resolutions.