LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22214, 14 September 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

OR DOES HE ANNOY YOU? Do you love your neighbour? Or does he merely annoy you? Or do you, frankly, hate him with a whole-hearted and quite unreasonable hatred, just because lie is your neighbour? asks a London writer. Had you, of course, met him as a casual aquaintance, living a good halfmile away, you'd probably have struck up a lifelong friendship. As it is, he is simply the man next door. And so his virtues become merely boring, and his vices overwhelming. " Those neighbours again!" you say. "That man next door!" it is always the most trivial thing that starts it. I know one family who waged for years a deadly feud with the family in the next house. It came to be the talk of the district. And it all began because one tidy-minded husband could never resist the impulse to stop and close his neighbour's front gate as he went past to business each morning. Another such feud was started by a tactless young couple who painted their fence and gate-post in a shade which clashed with their neighbours' colour-scheme. The trouble is you probably annoy your neighbour quite as much as he annoys you. ])o you, for instance: — Leave your wireless on all day? Play classical music when he likes jazz, or jazz when he likes classical music? Entertain your noisiest friends in the garden? Make a habit or "borrowing" shillings for the gas-meter, or stamps, or small change? Cadge tills of tobacco over the garden fence? Or continually "pop in" to use his telephone? Or don't you? Perhaps it always will be the fault of the people next door.