KNITTING IN PUBLIC.

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 12 April 1934, Page 4

KNITTING IN PUBLIC.

The industrious knitter, has drawn, upon herself the limelight of a publicity only a little less fierce (than. that, which, is beating upon Mr Bernard ShaW just now". (Shte has earned the rebukes of lear'ned university professors and other lecturers for her .habitual “purling, and plaining,” which has been declared; by public speakers to be distracting. S'ome of her kind have (even been, charged with the shill more heinous offon'ce of “consulting knitting-book instruction's during the ’course of lectures?”; that must, indeed, be the last Shraiv for any public speaker. The. effect upon a platform-speaker of the, regular .movement of knitting nee’dles can be "well-imagined, but what would, be equally distracting to him 1 would be the expressionless faces of his knitting, audience. When* silenlt and listening,, knitters develop a baffling calm of facial expression that would be an asset ati the poker table, bu't is .ruinous tfo the creation of “atmosphere” in the course of a public address. AVhat married, male lecturer, even though he be. a university professor, has not a closeup acquaintance of the clogged concentration which goes into .the knitting of a cable-stitch, pull-over? And knowing what he knows, how can, ho, whe'n looking at the expressionless faces of his knitting audience, comfort, him'self with the hope tnat it is an his golden, eloquence, and not in ithe search for a dropped stitch, that, his Hca'.rers are absorbed? But even if a- lecturer should, by long suffering, become inured to such adverse conditions, he will never be able to convince himself that a listener who consults a book while she knits .is really entering heart and soul into the subject matter of hiis address. It is appropriate that public men should at'tack this new menace to cultural progress. The objectors ito the practice could do worse than enlist the services of Mr Shaw to this end.