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MEN ONLY

/Written by Panache, for the ‘ Evening Star.’]

Though travellers should be content, there are some hotels in which it is impossible to wake up without the reflection that when one was at home one was in a better place. Such are those houses where slippered Hebes in curlicues thrust at the prostrate guest strong and; milky tea with a lump of sugar rising like an iceberg from the wash of the saucer. And such are those small-town caravanserais that have a suggestion of the ..old-fashioned boarding school about them, with their rows of wash basins guarding the approach to the, sole bathroom. Through the rows of basins, each featuring' a guest at. shave, the tiinid and conscientious bather must run the gauntlet. While [this country can claim such a distinction as the world’s record for telegrams per head, it would be churlish to complain of the rows of braces, uncovered and undisguised, that are visible ; any morning in a country hotel; but the paucity of dressing gowns must be of at least statistical interest. Perhaps wrestlers, whose dressing gowns are so gorgeous, would donate some splendid cast-offs to poor travellers, or perhaps someone would tell Lord Nuffield or [the Carnegie Corporation. However, this dressing gown shortage, though serious and'distressing, is clearly due to accident and lack of foresight or cash rather than to deliber T ately-designed callousness-, just as the thick and milky tea may be put down jto the psychological result of the plantations of Ceylon being advertised more intensively than those of China ; but in some hotels there exists a state of affairs so intolerable as to suggest that many a licensed victualler has one foot Jn the Middle Ages, and that Mary .Wollstonecraft, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the Pankfaurst family have lived and laboured in vain..

One morning I woke in. a new hotel ias the bedroom door slammed l behind the waitress. 'My tea, thick and colourful as the Taieri River in the best of iihe good old sluicing days, lapped fiercely at my elbow. I reached beyond it for the morning paper to read of Franco's latest iniquity. Nothing on the table. Philosophically I reflected that'-jn these highly industrialised days breakdowns, were to be expected. Perhaps the Press Association had suffered a lockout or the compositors had sabotaged! the typo or the paper boy had sprained his ankle. I must bear the . blank with a patient shrug, sufferance being the badge of all (those far from home. But through the (thin and gaudy-papered wall I caught * sound that was like the sobnd a newspaper makes when it is turned over.

I went down to breakfast. From the idining room door I could hear renewed rustlings that were not caused by the stiff whits aprons of the waitresses, nor yet by crisp breakfast foods being shovelled on to plates. The noise that was wafted to my ears through the {fragrant coffee-scented air was the orackle that is made by fresh newspapers when they are being folded. And Iff my ears were deceiving me, my eyes .were not. In the dining room were a dozen men, and each man was reading a newspaper,' either folded and propped against sauce bottle or toast-rack, or splayed out. against his paunch.

Faith in human nature dies hard, and though 1 had been given to read nothing but a menu card, I was loath .to damn the management for illogical and ill-advised prejudice and differentiation. Perhaps these men had brought these papers with them from yesterday’s train. A glance at the data on the paper to my right proved that my kind excuse would not hold water. Perhaps, I thought, struggling- stubbornly against the blackening evidence, perhaps all these men had rushed out, between shaving and breakfast, into the stormy morning, io - buy their papers. I dropped my table napkin, and so interested were my fellow-guests in their respective pages, that my head :was in no danger of a collision as I etooped to retrieve it, and glanced at the boots under the table. Immaculate from the hands of the night porter, those boots had braved no elements. -

Things looked bad, but there might be a reasonable explanation. Bravely I lifted my inferior voice and addressed my left-hand neighbour, as he beat me for the marmalade. I asked him how he came by his'paper. Too nice to jspeak with his mouth full, he kindly .unfolded his sheet and pointed to a* message stamped in red on the front, a. cheery morning greeting from the management. Where was my paper? Had I not eyes, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passion? And had I not booked a room a week in advance ?

Slowly it dawned on my unwilling Intelligence that morning papers in jthis hotel were conveniences for men only; or, if you prefer, it, male prerogatives. In my indignation, my toast stuck in my throat, and the .coffee I poured in to dislodge it choked (me. I tried to calm myself withJogic. Women were more expensive guests. They ate more, and the management had to restore the balance hy refusing them papers. But one look at my right hand neighbour 1 following jup his chops and eggs (double order) ■with liver and bacon, gave the lie to that. Then women were more trouble jto the staff. But through a wide open bedroom door I had seen a floor strewn •with garments, and they were not feminine garments. There was no escape from the answer. Women were denied newspapers because of their meaner intelligence. Timidly, shrinking from the truth, yet remembering the suffragette who had martyred herself on the Derby racecourse, I addressed the great man my neighbour and asked him a question about Spain. He beamed, and said he didn’t bother with Dagos, but did I know who’d won the Stewards’ Handicap. Thee, the other man, no follower of the turf, but kind also, pushed back bit chair. 1 could have his paper, lie couldn’t read on a motor bike, and he posued over his crumpled sheet, folded wheie lie had been reading m ULmmJ " "

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19380226.2.11

Bibliographic details

Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 3

Word Count
1,015

MEN ONLY Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 3

MEN ONLY Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 3