THE YEAR'S END.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE YEAR'S END.

OPINIONS OF SANDY.

BY KOTAEE,

I hadn't seen Sandy for many a day. He had disappeared from his usual haunts, and all I could learn when I called at his home was that the wanderlust had seized him once again and that he had set off to some destination unknown. That is his usual method I know; but I had come to look on the old man as something of an institution, something permanent in a world of flux. His housekeeper complained bitterly of his erratic disposition, and asked if this was a fair way to treat her who had slaved and toiled and worn herself to a shadow on his behalf. I could see no sign of diminution in her comfortable proportions, but hesitated to say so. In an evil moment I sympathised with her, and expressed the opinion that the old man had been lacking in the consideration that her many services entitled hsr to. At once she took the defensive. And like a good soldier she defended by launching a strong offensivi. The old man, it seemed, was a very much better type than this degenerate world was producing nowadays. I was led to understand that I represented all the baser elements in that particularly useless creature, the man of to-day. It was gratifying to find that I represented an epoch; that was a glory to which 1 had never aspired; the good lady seemed to have no doubt about it. My chief offenc® was that I, with my plentiful lack of virtues and manners, had presumed to criticise one whose shoes I was not worthy to clean. She wondered what the world was coming to, and took a very gloomy view of the destiny of the British race if I was a sample. I was foolish enough to suggest in the first interval—a very short breathing space while she girded herself for the second round—that I had done nothing but mildly agree with her own statement of the case. She swept this aside as a ridiculous irrelevancy. Before she war into her stride again I said a hasty farewell, and I have lacked the moral courage to make further inquiries. The Wanderer. To my great delight Sandy bobbed up serenely this week. I fancy he had been asking his housekeeper about me, and from her account of my outrageous attempt to take away his character ho had sized up the situation pretty accurately. Anyway he hunted me up to report himself. He was looking uncommonly well He had been to Australia, and seems to have gone as far as the Philippines. But I could get no details out of him. He is interested in people, not in places. He wants to hear no other man's traveller's tales and he inflicts his own on nobody, "I wanted to be back in Auckland for Christmas," he said, "I was hoping you might be staging another storm like tho one we had last Christmas, and I was not gDing to run the chance of missing it, And besides, I haven't missed Qneen Street at Christmas for a quarter of a century." "You must be the only man that likes it," I said. "Nonsense," he replied; "it's the heat and 1 the bustio and tho discomfort that it so-fine. Who doesn't like it? The shopkeepers like the increased trade; the youngsters simply love the crowd and the noise and the excitement; the tired mothers will be mighty sorry when Willy and Mary are too old to want to see the toy-shops and there are no grubby children to drag past the thousand and one delights. Even Santa Claus wearily parading the pavements swathed in the winter raiment oil the Northern Hemisphere must get his satisfaction from the eager faces trustingly and shyly lifted to his own. Why, Christmas week in Auckland always gives me back my faith in human nature, and sweeps me clean of all the miserable cynicisms the year's experiences have bequeathed to nie. Other cities are just the same, I suppose; but I know what to look for here, and where to fook for it." "Anything new?" I asked him; "any new impressions? How does the end of 1927 find you 1" The Modern Youth. "I've been trying to get a line on that latest portent, tho modern young man and woman," he said. "I kept my eyes open in Australia, and I. have been slowly sorting out inv conclusions in New Zealand for the "last few years." Do you know, I have come to believe that the young folk of to-day are not fairly treated. Not that the-usual criticisms of their lack of reverence and seriousness and so on are not sound enough. They must be true; for our elders said exactly the same things about us when I was a boy 60 odd years ago. In every age youth commits the unpardonable sin of being young. Older people can forgive youth everything except its youth. Adam is the only man that has not been convinced that things have changed sadly for the worse since he was a boy. I'll give you in all the condemnation of youth as youth that inevitably comes from ago as age. When you would give anything to have your youth again, you find what satisfaction you can in persuading yourself that after all youth is marred by a host of undesirable" characteristics from which, so you persuade yourself, the passing of the years has mercifully delivered you. " That's not what I mean at all. Young ptxjple to-day do not get a fair chance because their elders refuse absolutely to place themselves upon the shelf. Look' at the girls of even 20 years ago. From 17 to 21 they could count on having a clear field. Their elder sisters were married off; or had reached an age when the gay attire suitable to a maiden was for ever laid aside. During the pride of their youth they had no competition from their elders. There was a steady march onwards. You left youth behind and settled down to the frame of mind arid the suitable habiliments and the suitable occupations and recreations of maturity. ! Youth's Hurdle. " That was the idea. You had your chance, and then stood aside to make room for others. But, bless you, we have changed all that. Women dress the same from 16 to 60. They do the same things from 16 to 60, They never leave tho stage. I don't say that this is not J a very good thing; it is the fact I -am concerned about. Instead of a clear field the young people have to fight for standing room against everybody, from their grandparents down. They have had to try an entirely new experiment in orientation. We can't blame them if they find it hard to get their bearings. For theirs is a problem the youth of no other generation has had to face and solve. "In fighting for thoir own hand the only course open to them is the obvious one of going to extremes. They must shout loudly to bo heard at all. They must seek the outre, the extravagant, the daring. Otherwise, they have nothing characteristically youthful left to them. I suppose this fierce refusal to abandon youth is a good thing; but it is makings life a hard thing for the unceasing battalions of newcomers that every year thrusts upon the overcrowded scene.'-