THE OTHER HALF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16169, 4 March 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE OTHER HALF.

nr FRANK MORTON'.

i HOW THE WORLD LIVES.

You may have heard it said— these trite sayings travel far—that one half of the -world doesn't know how the other half lives. Unlike most trite sayings, this ; happens to be true in essence and in fact. , I haven't the faintest glimmering of an idea, for instance, of how an archdeacon passes his days. Tbo only archdeacon I have intimately, known was a shining exception, who had once been a newspaper man—the sunniest and most brotherly confiding sweet chap that ever wore cloth. I always felt that lie was quite as much in the dark about archdeacons in general as I was. And so I tick them off on ray fingers, the people of whose modes of life and manners of thought I know nothing— suburban drapers, poultry-farmers, " majors" of the Salvation Army, newspaper managers, crimps, lady journalists, horse dealers, solicitors, tanners, respect* ablo fathers of big domineering families, chiropodists, incurable philatelists, jockeys, Seventh Day Adventists, aristocrats of crime, professional philanthropists, and the thousand and one other queer fish who believe each in his gods, and his ability to edit a newspaper or tell Lord Kitchener how to make war. I don't know anything about these people,. and they don't know anything about me; but tho world still wags on. On the other hand, I know a lot about missionaries, actors, mature dames who are prepared at any hazard to follow their ! whims to the world's end, and advertising experts, hardened teetotallers, drunkards, wharf lumpers, ne'er-do-weels, remittance men, liars, and prophets; and all such people read me liko a book. Concealment by Advertisement. Advertising, while I think of it, is the most wonderful game in the world, and the most devious. I know a gentleman, well trusted by the people, who thinks that all hotels should close at 10 a.m., though he is .never really sober after that hour except on his occasional stay-at-home Sundays. With him, you see, temperance ardour is the poster he sticks over the ugly hole in the fence. I know a newspaper man, a critic— a very fierce and terrible critic—so fierce a critic that many a poor wee lamb has sobbed over him on Sunday mornings. That is the line lie advertises; but, in cool fact, if any feminine soft thing that ever whisked her skirts on tho stage so much as looks at him he' straightway is consumed with the desire to buy her chocolates and comfits. Advertisement is often merely the means adopted for the concealment of inherent tendency. One half is most anxious that tile other half shall not know how it lives, and that is why it advertises. I am not now talking, you will understand, of the purveyors of starch and buzz-saws. lit the Barber's Shop, I was sitting with several members of the other half awaiting my turn in a suburban barber's shop the other morning.. There was an obvious loafer, an amateur of uncertain horses, some sort of dealer, a village nondescript, and the barber himself. They nettled the war between them, and my hair stood on end as they did it. They mentioned what Kitchener said to Joafer. They produced new and horrible evidence against the Turk, TTiey took Australian statesmen one by one, and tore them limb from limb. Even Mr. Holman. I happen to know Mr. Holman, and to like him—as everyone that happens to know him must; so I was peculiarly interested. A certain brewery, I heard, was a German concern, and 'Olman owned eleven hundred shares in it. That's why ho wouldn't close the pubs, before tea. 'Olman was in the gime, 'e was. When Mrs. 'Olman went to America awhile back, slie took fifteen thousand of 'is to invest, so 'e'd be er-right when Australia got too 'ot. And so forth. Tickling the Securities. All very interesting, because if there Is one man in Australian politics who would be better off in pocket if he had never heard of politics at all, that man is Mr. Holman, of New South Wales. But the other half is prone to these delicious pert inaccuracies. A good chap of the half that isn't mine tamo along in all innocence the other day and told me ho could lay me on to a good thing if I'd put a hundred into it. A hundred! There is no such sum of money. I should love to see Mr. Holman tickling American securities with fifteen thousand pounds. But it is an impish dream. The only Australian politician with money, as an Irish friend assured me a few weeks ago, are New Zealanders. A man here in Sydney somehow got hold of a sovereign last week, and he gave a special afternoon tea at the Australia so that tho women could gaze at it. They gazed askance, because they wondered what bank he'd been robbing. Mr. Green and Bill. If you happen to run against Mr. Holman don't mention tho fifteen thousand. It would bo too cruel. I suppose that if I ever had such a sum, I should come to know something about the other half. But no, I think not; there is some; knowledge that one never acquires, unless one is born with tho trick of it. Most of us know more about tho pleiosaurus than we do about our neighbours. Far back in my youth I once lived next door to a girl for two years, She was all pink like a cherub, all dimpled like a fairy. But in tho twenty-fourth month I was still calling hor Miss Jones in a sober and respectful manner. And yet one will meet another woman—a tourist from New York or some other remote part— be calling her Sadie within eleven minutes. It all depends on the half. I know a grocer I call Mr. Green, and a vicar I call Bill. That is becauso Bill got away from tho grocer ' some time ago and got over the boundary into my half. Life is very wonderful. The Mysterious Half. Who shall tell us how they live, the people who cling for ever hazardously to somo frail edge of things. There aro | teachers of this and of that, the teachers unqualified, who never seem to have any j pupils. There are the company promoters j who never seem to promote anything, j There are, in all these big Australian cities, the men who dress decently, behave decently, talk vaguely of great schemes they have in hand, but never seem to work or turn a penny. There is a queer and varied crowd that hangs about theatres and sporting hotels. It is the most mysterious of all crowds, because it pretends nothing, does nothing, dreams nothing; it just stands around listlessly, and no man is ever idiotic enough to offer it work. And there is another crowd, more scattered—the crowd of the men who never work, but depend entirely on the labour of their wives, daughters, nieces. These men are always sticklers for propriety, ereat and 1 loquacious authorities 011 public affairs, upholders of popular morality: and no man ever kicks them, because few men suspect how they live. It is just as well not to inquire, as a general thing. I never do.