CAKE EATERS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 566, 10 May 1913, Page 2

CAKE EATERS.

PECULIAR HABITS OP NEW ZE A LANDERS. A correspondent of the London Chronicle remarks on what he deems to be a "curious Antipodean fashion" namely, that in New Zealand ladies eat cake with a fork. The reason, he declares, is the shortage of domestic servants. "The New Zealand lady ao often ha 3 to do her own housework that it is the fashion at afternoon teas to keep gloves on—in mercy to poßsibly roughened hands; whence the fork of the cake."

Other correspondents of the Chronicle have written declaring that the etiquette of eating cake with a fork in order to avoid taking off the gloves at an afternoon party ia not always due to the concealment of roughened hand*. It is thus explained by a lady who had lived and worn gloves in many lands. She writes «irom London in March:—"The taking off and putting on of gloves in a warm climate ia not quite bo simple a matter as it is here."

Another "curious New Zealand fact" is instanced by a gentleman who confesses a partiality for cake. During his wanderings in the Dominion he discoveed that in Auckland the amount supplied for a stated sum was faitly generous, but in Wellington the amount had shrunk noticeably, in Christchurcb the shrinkage was even greater, whilst in Dunedin and Invercargill the amount had decreased to half the Auckland supply; but in all cases the price was the same. He adds: "The south of New Zealand is said to be even more Scotch than Scotland; perhaps therein lies the explanation."