LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19418, 28 August 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MEECOTIO.

During the week just enrling, one ship from tho United States brought along a small cargo of 210,000 cases of fuel oil, to say nothing of 760,000 ft. of lumber, and a quantity of general cargo. This is not an isolated instance. It is happening almost every week. If all the motor-cars 1 imported from the United States in the course of a year were placed, pointing foro and aft, on the road between Auckland and Waimamaku, if there is a road between Auckland and Waimamaku, they would extend for a considerable distance, and some of them would get stuck in the mud. If all the chewing gum imported from tho United States in five years were rolled together into one sticky mass, a cow could be bogged in it without any difficulty. If all the money sent in a year to the United States for motorcars, motor spirit, moving pictures and magazines were put together ' into one lump sum and presented to Mercutio, he would be very thankful. But these mathematical calculations and comparisons, vivid as they may be, only illustrate, but do not alter the fact that in many ways this Dominion of ours is a very useful financial satel'ite of the United States. We buy and buy and bay; but do we sell ? Not very much. The best we seem to be able to do is to receive tourists and levy tribute. Revenue so derived is what financial experts would describe as invisible imports, Tho tourists are not invisible, nor inaudible either. Their money is, or soon becomes so. However, this financial argument is growing very tangled. The only way out is the reflection that so long as , the United States continues to make and sell tho sort of luxury articles we want, we will go on buying them, and moralising about trade balances won't alter the position one jot, because it would involve altering human nature. The Hospital Board was rather startled at its last meeting to receive a request for assistance toward building a school. Though its full title is the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, it decided that charitable aid was hardly wido enough inits significance t.o apply to struggling schools. Quite right too. If it once began launching out like this, there is no knowing what the end would be. Supposing the Railway Department came along with a request on behalf of certain j branch lines it cherishes; how could charitable aid be denied them ? The accounts show they need something to mitigate their poverty. Parliament is very generous with compassionate allowances, but there is no harm in having another resource. Somebody has dropped Mercutio a note mildly protesting against the use of J.P.'s as the abbreviated plural of Justices of the Peace. Also he says M.P.'s should not mean, as it sometimes has to mean, more than one member of Parliament, but a member of more than ono Parliament. No doubt ho is right. No doubt • these things 'should not be done. But life is short, time is precious, and it; is a long job thinking out what is the correct plural of abbreviations which are accepted as more like' words than abbreviations. Besides if you do it for one you should in common justice do it for all. Then, suppose you were in touch with things military and had to speak of more than one D.A.Q.M.G., assuming you were bold enough' to speak of even one of the high and mighty. What a task to sort out the proper letter'for the plural sign. Even in civil life, think of writing A.'s R.1.8.A. or F.'s R.C.S. ! Even M.'s D. is awkward. It may not be strictly correct to say qr write J.P.'s, but life has so many other things to worry about; why worry about this? ' ! #*

This is the day of sex equality and emulation. Because the old Thames boys have a successful association and hold successful reunions, the old Thames girls have decided to do likewise. The fact that membership might involve acceptance of the label "old girl" has proved no deterrent. It has taken feminine wit to draw the distinction between old Thames girls and Thames old girls; but it has been done, and everybody is happy, including the octogenarian girls who seek membership. More power to them, too! May they continue girls at heart as they creep past the nineties and make for the century. The sort of girls who -were on the Thames in the hey-day of its glory are just the ones to top the century too. Anyway, the exclusive male claim to " old Thames" has been definitely shattered. This onward march of feminism grows wholy irresistible. Presently, if things continue as they now go, another society will need to have a care. One woman, with the aid of Father Time, broke through its sacred portals. What ono has done others may do, or at least try to do. They seem very pleased with themselves down in Nelson because they have abolished home-work. The teachers have done most of the public jubilating, but no doubt the pupils are heartily supporting the movement. It leaves so much more time for the study of wireless, filmacting technique, and similar things much more important than mere reading, writing and arithmetic. Meantime one panegyrist of the chango says it- has emancipated the parent. He is a schoolrrrster. »nd he ought to know; perhaps he is a parent, too, which would explain Jus enthusiasm in part. For if his own hopefuls demanded help at night he could rir h *'v resent hiving to take a busman's holiday. But if this educational revolution does mean the emancipation of parents, there must be something in the old, old joke about Tommy's composition, written bv father, or Willie's long division, worked out by the same longEurienng parent, failing to come up to scratch. If so it may explain the change ns the teacher's revolt against having to correct the parent's mistakes without having the satisfaction of correcting the parent. * l Hoardings have never been so much talked about in their whole existence as they have been since the Railway Department began to plant them wherever it could find a vacant spot. One wonders whether it has become alert enough to demand more from the advertiser because everybody is drawing attention to its exhibits. If so, this would not be the first instance of capital being made out of attack. Ask any theatrical manager whose show has been publicly called undesirable. But up to the present most hoardings have been attacked as inartistic, or on the grounds that they hide something even more beautiful than themselves. A new line of assault has been found, that some of the department's latest efforts are positively dangerous. The hoardings may or may not be dangerous; but if public "opinion were rightly formed and marshalled, to put them up would be. Theva is a new Licensing Bill which suggests there shall be a referendum about a referendum. inere is an old saying which is appropriate to the case—Big fieas have little fleas that worry 'em, and bite 'em. Little fieas have lesser fleas and so Ad infinitum.