PROPER USE OF LEISURE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 79, 28 December 1926, Page 12

PROPER USE OF LEISURE

“The sad tiling about modern English society is that there is so little leisure in this higher sense. It is not only that we work so hard; it is also that we plav so hard. Perhaps the monotony and uniformity of work sends us in reaction to the hazard of games or the excitement of watching them, or the still greater excitement of betting upon them,” said Principal Barker, of King’s College, in a recent SP “Tlie use of leisure is a difficult thing. The majority of us, when freedom is given into our hands, fly to the excitement of some form of recreation. We must be ‘doing’ .something—preferably something physical; if we are not, we are lost and without resource. We know the routine of work we know the rules and routine of different forms of play; but we do not know how to move freely, originally, and by our own choice in tlie world that lies above work and play—the world of leisure. “This is why holidays sometimes pall, and leave us at a loss; it is why men who have retired from work sometimes fall into melancholy, and .find their reason for living gone. Leisure without faculty for its use may even be a mother of mischief; men may dissipate themselves in frivolities, and worse than frivolities, because they do not 1 know how to concentrate themselves upon better things.

In an article in the "Daily Mirror,’ under the heading "Value for Money; How Giris with Little to Spend can Make Best Purchases/’ “Medicus, a Harley Street specialist, in recommending a good lunch for the sandwich box, says: “In the winter I advise you to buy New Zealand butter. It costs less than English butter, and it is particularly good for you, ns the cows, in New Zealand, and the grass on which they feed, get plenty of sunlight, and. in consequence the butter is richer in what are known as the ‘fat soluble vitamins. Yon will remember that our winter coincides with the New Zealand summer. The butter comes over in cold-storage, nnd is in perfect preservation.' Last year a strange pigeon came to the residence of Mr. H. J. Hopkins, and staved about a fortnight (says the Stratford "Post”). At first it was very timid, but before it left it became quite tame. The pigeon has now returned, just a rear afterwards to the. very day, signalising its arrival by coming to the door and calling for food. On tins occasion the pigeon showed no timidity, fast rear it bore the number CS2, but so far this year it has not been exam, ined for the mark, though Mr. Hopkins is unite sure it is the 6 a ino bird that visited him last year.- ■ 1