ON THE SCALES

Evening Star, Issue 18093, 7 October 1922, Page 14

ON THE SCALES

HOW MEN AND WOMEN BEHAVE. How do you weigh yourself? If you are a man, in one way, if a woman, in another; so Emily Z. tried-kin points out in tho Now York ‘Herald,’ after watching the performance, for ten minutes one afternoon in a street near Broadway. A man, she writes, weighs himself with solemnity and his bundles. A woman dispenses with both these. Xot so many of ner is deflected from her course by the sign of tho scale, but invariably—if we use any random ten minutes to represent every ten minutes, as tho geometrists’ method is—invariably, I pot-iced, she smiles, giggles, laughs outright! I lay this down as a rule, even though I have no exceptions with which to prove it. THE SOLEMNITY OP THE- MALE.

Now, with a man it is different. Abruptly but very precisely he steps cm tho scale —all his feot on the floor of it, heels clicked, ankles touching, insteps on a line, and one shoo tip not a ’teenth of an inch ahead t’other. Ho makes this adjustment rapidly, stands still an instant, then cocks his head to read. Many of them squint or close an eye fo- look at tho hig,, round, numbered, but somehow very blank, lace of the scale. Infrequently a man is incredulous, m he glances hurriedly and angrily to. the ground. Maybe one of tho gamin shoeshiners is weighing -down tho scale with his foot—hut, no;" guess ho does weigh that much; off ho steps and goes, very serious withal.

And if it happened that a man ivas carrying a package he’d cany it with him to the scales and he altogether nonchalant about it, except a laborer, who had a pair of giant garden scissors with him. Ho weighed himself with and without.

CONTRAST FEMININE FRIVOLITY! Tho women who do stop to weigh themselves do- it in groups, tho men are usually alone; but whether or no they stand one behind another, single file, to wait their turn. (Hero again you see woman’s disruptive influence.) Well, the ladies giggle and hesitate, hesitate and giggle, during which time they transfer such things as purses and small boxes, which weigh, at tho outside, a quarter of a pound. They ascend the scale, but without tho nice neatness of tho men. They laugh. Every blessed one of ’em!

One woman was accompanied- by hex husband, whom she loaded with three really sizeable packages and a competenilookmg pocket-book. Then she weighed herself—and smiled

I do not make these generalisations rashly; they are scientifically arrived at by experimental observation, watching ten minutes bv tho watch.