TECHNIQUE OF WOOING

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1925, Page 2

TECHNIQUE OF WOOING

WILT-THOILBE-MINE B USINESS. Having .for years cherished a firm .belief that the one. spot In this bleak earth where women were really scarc.e was a place- called Manitoba —-a kind of spinsters’ Mecca, to if a lune, Hrn lady could only raise the boat fa: j, she need not be lone and lorn for more than ten minutes after disembarking and picking a winner from the dozen or sir. strong, silent, handsome, gum-ph’ewing Godfrey Tearles, complete •yi.th..loggings and la’sisb'qs, lined up cn the landing stage ready to succumb to ally womanly charins floating about, Sind; iii the language of the land of promise, “hike jt for, the most adjacent Bible merchant's at the double-quick’’

—having, as I say, believed that Manitoba hvld the vorld rights bf this Somerset Maugham love stuff, it is with mixed feelings (writes Evadne Price, in the “Sunday Chronicle”) that 1 /observe a rival syndicate has been formed, with a view, I take it, to doing dear old Manitoba, with its romance, and primitive pasison, well in the eyeball. Let me' explain : —

A group of farmers in the Vilna district of Alberta have appointed Mr

Thomas .Tacksbn, one of their number, to visit England and Ireland to fiiid wives - for sixty-three .bachelors. Prominent men el the district have given Mr Jackson’s mission consider-

able financial, support. , , It looks as. though some of us might get off this season', with a bit of uck, doesn’t.it? The glad tidings, doubtless, will be responsible for a terrific boom in artificial sil(< hose and aiils to faces in opr village emporiums; and the Avidespread interest thus created will telnporarily oust the absorbing, -crossword puzzle from its priTai'y'pla'ce in the. affection of a few thousand of us podr, fluttering’females resident in the United Kingdom, excluding Scotland and Wales, which, one notes, are apparently barred from the great Alberta matrimonial lottery, every ticket a winner, and no blanks drawn —perhaps. Far be it from mp to disparage the lonely farmer, wlio, on hearing that Mr Jackson, of Vilna, is contemplating a trip to the Old Country, has a sudden brain wave, springs on his bucking broncho, and addresses his friend in, the following burning words, so typical of the simple son of the prairie:—

Say, Tom, would you rope me in a real English pipe, a new saddle, and a wife?" I’d like a wife pa'rticler. The old, shack gets kinder lonely towards sundown, and I figure I’d like to see a female's calico gown leaning ' over the kitchen stove toyin’ with the evenin’ beans and mush. Servants wages is riz agin, Tom, and I figure a. true woman’s love is what I want. Any. shape or sizenot too long in the teeth, bo. You Will? Shake. The ,news gels found Alberta, and finally the harassed Air Jackson is obliged to have .printed forms circulated, a company is financed, and sixtv-three gents are waiting in their little wooden huts for sixty-three berlushing British brides, even now heating curling irons iff wild aiiticipaUoff and rubbing astringent lotions into their enlarged pores in the sacred quest of beauty. , . Well, it’s a good thing that most of ns are content to be tod to the altar without criticising too openly the technique of the gentleman with whom we nr’ae doing the merry wedding glide, on the auspicious occasion when he offers, us the key of his manly heart. I do not iffean those lovely vampires who hr edeath to strong men. I am discussing those,common, kitchen, or garden females who, like myself, can only

hope to rope in one proposal of’ matrimony per lifetime. And I consider it is hard lines that the one big moment of a poor girl’s life should be ruined, as it usually is, by . an unimaginative bungler who doesn’t know his lines properly; and whose only idea is to get it over quickly, and see where he stands in. the ladv’s affections. It would serve men right if my gentle sex banded together and struck against the wilt-thou-be-miiie business until the proposers learned to pop th.? good old query with at least a pretence to grace and elegance. An impossible dream ,of course, in view of the hordes of blacklegs simply praying for such a strike. That’s the advantages of places like Alberta and Manitoba, where

women are at a premium. The modern, giyl is publicly denounced at least once every day and twice on Sundays by hankerers after the good old days when girls were girls and the shingle, was confined to nice young men with side-whiskers and nightmare ties. Because she does not faint with coy embarrassment on receipt of a love letter, or have hysterics on the drawing Hom hearthrug when a youth intimates that he saw her firs', and is there anvthing doing, she is looked upon as hard and unwomanly and unsexed by the romanticists of the past generation. Well, .1 ask yon as British .citizens Any girl who bridled and simpered at ; love letter from the average 1925 lover would be a congenital idiot. ,A damsel had something to blush over fifty years ago. Compare the dignified suitor of those days: Madam,—When I begin a friendship it is for immortality. To have a real friend to whom I can confide all my joys and sorrows has ever been ■ my ambit’on. Madam, will you give nie leave to wait on you? I have already approached your esteemed parents, and am, dear madam, —Your true admirer, WILLIAM BYRON MAKEPEACE, with the flippant, careless male of to-

day, * Dear Flipski,—Going abroad on 13th. Coming ? Be a sport. Getting license. Will ’phone 11 for answer. Cheerioski. BILL. and toll me which has deteriorated, the in,ale or female of the species And a verbal proposal from the modern young man is a crying disgrace. lie generally asks the object of his passion to wed him when she has just settled down comfortably to the horse, d’oeuvres, and has an olive in her lovely mouth which, she swallows whole in the excitement of the moment, with the band adding insult t<« injury by crashing out ‘Eat More Fruit’ as" she goes purple in the face and is being banged on 4he back by a handv waiter. Or else lie i* forcibly pushed into it by a determined mamma, who saw him coming months ;-«<>. and decides to bell? Fate in the moving finger stakes before it is too lute, and daughter Mary Ellen begins to show signs of wear and tear 'But seldom is the modern .prod'v-t swept off her feet by the wild and blaz ing proposal of a .superman. Show me a girl y. ho has not in Imr spare mo-i-ieiits dreamed of a glorious mivture of Romeo, Ivor Novello, and the Sheik of Arabv kneeling before her, with burning eves searing Tier very soul. “Oh, wonder woman of the ages.” she hears him murmur, “my passion for von Tenders me as helpless, :js. a littlb child 1) yoii. in ytnir...white purity, only reaiissd how every fibie of my being is calling madly for you

and the clear nearness of you. , Beloved heart, what is convention? Fly with me to my desert home, where a primitive man and woman can live and love hemmed in only/ by the great silences. ... or words to that effect. That’s the stuff to give the troops. And what do the poor troops get? He : “Well, old girl, what about.it?” She: “What about what?’’ He: “You and me. getting tied up.” She: “Oh, that' Righto!” " He : “Thanks so much.” She: ‘‘Not at all. Have a gasper.” No wonder we poor nineteoii-twenty-fivers hide our true palpitating selves under a mask of assumed boredom. And now sixty-three poor superfluous women will shortly be married to sixtythreo Alberta, farmers, without even the satisfaction of being wooed in the offhand fashion I have quoted above. They will be engaged by the human labour exchange; Mr Jackson,. and returned, carriage paid,' I suppose, if they are not up to .stated specifications. A delightful thought for the day. ■ T only Hope I lie gentlemen get. wbnt they deserve. I should like To bo there when the prospective bridegrooms . sen ' what Santa. Claus lias sent them. The final tableau T have in mind is sumir~'d up in a speech T heard a pantomime

dame in ‘Aladdin’ deliver this Christmas :. . ' ' ■ ' Where I come from they keep us veiled until after the. wedding ceremony. I shall never forget the first time my husband .saw iny face. Dear, dear. Poor man, and Tie wasn’t well either. Six months after, when he c*m cto in hospital; . : . L ' Ah, well, let us hope for better days. In the meantiriie; call anybody give me Mr Jackson’s _py.iya.te. address?