"NOT AT HOME" BOXES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 67, 22 March 1929, Page 15

"NOT AT HOME" BOXES

CONVENIENT BURMESE IDEA

Now Zealand hostesses are still sticklers for the "at home" day convention, but in Burmah they have a much better way of managing things. "Not at home" boxes are attached to the entrances of the various bungalows and visitors drive round, dutifully putting little pieces of pasteboard through the slits (says an exchange). So are the social amenities satisfied, and women are not bothered to entertain callers whom they do not want. But with young bachelors who just arrive at the station, it is necessary to pay formal calls, or there will be a dearth of invitations to dinner and parties. Sometimes the supply of visiting cards runs out, then the lads return to the homes of good friends, and request their- cards back again, so that they can be put into other boxes. "But that is only likely to happen on real field days," says Mrs. J. M. Thorburn, of Burmah, where she has made her home for the past nine years. Bangoon is just like a suburb of a big city, sho says, and the idealised Burmah of Fielding Hall has changed in recent years to a most matter of fact country. Even lovely temples built in past centuries aro lit with electric flood lights. But there is one essential difference between Sydney and Rangoon, and that is in the matter of domestic service. Mrs. Thorburn has 11 servants in her manage, mostly Hindus. The best cooks belong to a tribe called "mhugs," who are a mixture of Burmese and Hindu. Yet Mrs. Thorburn always makes her own salada from vegetables grown by herself, always sees to her own water filter, an < makes her own coffee. Sho never eats salads or drinks water away from her own home.

"Once upon a time, to dine at the bachelor's quarters, was to take your life in your hand," she says, "and the only way to avoid dysentry and cholera is to see that your kitchen utensils, not to mention the food, are well looked after. I make my rounds every morning about 8 o 'clock, and look into all the pots, and see to the water. Evory Friday morning I spend at the club looking at the just-arrived English papers, and that is the only time my 'boy' makes coffee.