NEW ZEALAND GIRLS. In Relation to Mother and "Dress."

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 218, 3 September 1904, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND GIRLS. In Relation to Mother and "Dress."

LADY Plunket has noticed that the girls of New Zealand dress expensively. She didn't say they dress "well," which is another thing She likewise remarked that i-fc was a pity to see young girls wandering about evidently beyond the control of their mothers Lady Plunket probably doesn't know yet that many of the mothers of New Zealand haven't much time or inclination to look after their own children. * * * You see, so many women desire to adjust the laws and social conditions for other people's children. Again, children, especially girls, are a bore. Mother can't "get out" if she is pestered with three or four girls, and the

best way to "get out" is to give them "carte blanche" to "get out" too. Mother isn't as a rule in the wholesale line One or two children suffice, but don't content her. Mother is so enlightened that she must have time to put other thingsbesides her house m order, and her daughters, who are free-born natives of the most glorious land the sun ever shone on, think' mother is do>mg all right, but despise her for her lax rule. * * * "Don't they dress expensively?" They do, and that's a fact. Mother's fault again ? No ' Father's fault this time Father's pants maybe frayed at the far end, but his bonny daughter must have a carriage dress, even if she hasn't got a carriage Father's hat may have lostits nap, but Esmeralda must have the very latest thing only seen on wealthy women where Lady Plunket comes from. Father wears a leather watch-cham and a Waterbury watch, but the daughter must have a gold granny-chain Father cuts a dash by proxy He is proud of the exhibition. * * * As for the disposition of the young colonial girl to gallivant, father owns that she isn't as obedient as a British girl, and rather revels in it. He delights in telling tales of the days when his English or Irish or Scotch parents "leathered" him, but he doesn't "leather" the gallivanting girl, or get mother to do it. The very "naicest" girls m New Zealand are not content to know that they have a smart frock at home. They want the world to know it. They don't follow the old-fashioned British custom of showing quality by plain attire. They want toi make a splash, and, entre nous, it's surprising how they effect their purpose. * * • Why is there so little filial reverence m New Zealand ? Simply because there is little reverence m parents for their "betters." Things are so beautifully graduated at Home. The servant raises his hat to the master, who may be a grocer, the grocer doffs his "bun" to the customer, who has more money, the customer bows low to the squire, the squire bends his back to the baronet, the baronet kowtows to the peer, and the peer reveres caste if it is sufficiently high. * # * Reverence for anyone a little higher than oneself is common in the Old Land, and children learn it m their cradles. The discipline that prompts a sewmg-girl to curtsey to the head-milliner is the same feeling that prompts her to concede that her mother is worthy of the same respect. Everybody m New Zealand is as good as everybody else — better generally. There are thousands of girls and boys m New Zealand who are better educated; better dressed, and more ambitious than their parents, and they are evidently not going to let dowdy persons of the parent class dictate to them on matters of etiquette * * * We suppose the men of New Zealand, as a rule, control the pursestrings, and are mainly responsible for the generally gorgeous attire of their daughters, and their scorn of the mere mother. While men like "smart" girls, extravagantly-dressed girls, "swagger" girls, the said girls won't be dowdy or old-fashioned enough to treat their mothers as their mothers may have had to treat "granny," and so we unhappily conclude that the lack of courtesy and reverence for elders, and love of adornment, can never be reformed by all the Mothers' Guilds m creation. The men, for whose benefit the "smartness" is assumed, have the remedy in their own hands They could make the good girl, the mother's girl, the "dowdy" for that matter, fashionable in a year. But, man wants to see something for his money.