LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

by mercutio.

••We may rail against (lie sudden and sr j e d changes in weather which we in the temperate zone," says Auckland scientist, " but the fact remains that this weather plays a definite art i" intell ec tual growth." Of course • does. Many a man delivering himself 0 f his feelings about this weather discovers powers of expression and a wealth of verbal resource never suspected in , ■ before. Is this not intellectual 'owth? '-Again, without the weather as topic, lots of people would have nothS , at 'all to say to one another. It is tv" the impact of one mind on another, ith as the medium, that intellectual growth is stimulated. So t l, cre it is again. Speech is the greatest I nil arts and the parent of all the rest. If therefore, people were speechless without the weather to detonate their powers 0 { expression, they would fall into mental stagnation. Of course, the weather is capable sometimes, of striking them speechless, but they soon recoyer, to tart off again with more enthusiasm thin ever. Take it as you will the woatber is the spark that fires the cylinder and s o ' s the mechanism in motion. Where would we ,be without it ?

They have been sending flowers from Canada to New Zealand. This is not an attempt to say it with flowers in anticipation of the* Ottawa Conference, but a cool storage transport, experiment with, nresuinablv, a definite commercial motive in the background. That being properly realised, there is no room for misunderstanding. Otherwise Canada might be told, in a perfectly friendly, tactful way, that' the bouquet most appreciated would be one that looked like an order for butter or something like that.

\fter her visit to New Zealand with te'r palatial yacht and all its appurtenances, Lady "Yule has had very little really to say when asked her impressions of the country. Russell did not please her and Whangaroa did; more was done to make her way easy at the one than at the other place. For the rest, she complains she was asked £42 for a week's hire of a car, when she was able to get one for £25 in the United States. Bit pathetic, isn't it. from one who has been loudly and widely proclaimed the wealthiest woman in the world ? But there it is; folk become wealthy and remain wealthy by keeping an eye on such things as the cost of hiring cars and so forth. For the rest, it isn't easy to be a tourist country. If the whole place and its system could be remade for every visitor who came along it would be easy to please them all; but it would mako the overhead of the tourist business lather heavy. People say why doesn't Jvew Zealand do things the way Switzerland does ? For one thing New Zealand isn't Switzerland. For another, it has vet to .be proved that nobody grumbles or feels disgruntled in Switzerland. Anyway, if New Zealand tried, someone would be "certain, to come along asking why on earth this country was trying to make itself into a second-class imitation of Switzerland. The tourist business is very difficult. As has been said before, we are told the tourists won't come until mffieiently luxurious accommodation is provided for them; then we are told the money to finance can't found u ntiT the "lounst s come in shoals. So now .we know where we are, where are we ?

The idea has been advanced—and a rery good idea it seems—that boys who are likely to go seeking a career in tho country ishould be taught plain cooking. Then, if they go pioneering they will not be condemned to a diet of canned meat and hard biscuit, or words to that effect. Very good. At the same time is it quite fair to suggest that unless taught in school the boys would not be able to do anything with their rations but eat them? Young New Zealand is not quite without resourcefulness or adaptability. A few years back the elder brothers or even the fathers of these boys —alas, how many those few years have become found ways of doing many things, with limited facilities, to bully beef and biscuit and an occasional Jlachonochie for a garnish. It is not. conceivable that the present generation has lost that fine touch altogether. Still it is a good idea to stimulate the latent talent in advance. Apart from the reasons already given, think how it will enhance the value of these lads some day iu the marriage market!

Some people say that news from this mmtry is dressed up in such startling form when it is sent abroad that it ought l o be stopped or censored, or something. It is perhaps a little humiliating to think that other countries don't seem to worry a bit about the shape in which their news reaches New Zealand. But that is by the w ay.. It is said that the stories about 'he riot in Auckland that were published elsewhere were altogether too dramatic, sensational, highly coloured, and the rest, "o that the reputation of this fair land w as likely to bo sullied for all time. There is nothing new under tho sun of course. When the first Maori war broke here, away back in tho forties, there v; as some heart-burning about the stories ®f it which appeared in certain Sydney newspapers. So thero it is. However, as for this proposed censorship, it is a thing to be handled with great care; for once the word goes out that the news any event is being censored, people follow their usual practice of believing 'he worst. Anyway, how are you going to make it effective ? Remember the wcasion when a certain man was arrested Auckland with a bomb in his lwssession ? A brief and quite accurate account of that affair, to which no censor fluid take exception, was cabled to Lon'lon. 'lt; mentioned that the arrest was Jnade near Government House; so it was. a resourceful London sub-editor ]yrot e a heading to the story which ran ' Red ' Suspected of Plot to Blow Up Government House." How is a censorship going to provide against that ?

is said that a change has come over jhe sartorial customs of men in New Zealand. " Full fig " evening dress, with | a il coat, white vest, and the other fixis being less and less worn, the dinner jacket being accepted as sufficient for *'"iost all social occasions. A very large pUiporfi.on of menfolk will be left entirely unmoved by this piece of social evolution, "hose to whom evening dress is the same '.morning and afternoon dress will be Huite cold on the question. Whether the ca 'l is for short coat ox full fig is immaterial to those who possess neither. * 0 those who do own one or other or l>oth, the hurdle of donning them is less hat ot putting on the coat than of giggling into the unaccustomed and at season chill and comfortless boiled * flirt. How men ever endured this armour Plate every day, as they had to when it *as regulation business wear, is one of thimgs "no feller can understand," as |undreary used to say of the very many 5 1R gs he. couldn't understand. Therefore, " e swing awav from tails is of only Moderate interest, except perhaps to the 'Went evolutionists who believe our long jstant ancestors gradually discarded actual flesh and bone tails, and can thus ra ce another step in the or ? SCe nt, of man—whichever you consider Beyond that, there is the social ''Pecfof it; the change in the cut of filing clothes is just like the other cuts nowadays—something snipped