WOMEN’S CLUBS AND THEIR LITTLE FAILURES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 25

WOMEN’S CLUBS AND THEIR LITTLE FAILURES

Of course it depends on tlie point of view. Some of the weak points here chronicled are apparently the chief articles of faith among feminine clubbites. seeing that they prevail in most. Anyway, whether strong or weak, the contrast between a man's ideal of a club and that held by his wife and sister is interesting. Man is said to want but little here below. Bht one of those few wants is a quiet, peaceful club whose Nirvana stillness soothes hie nerves ofter the burden and bustle of a busy day. At a woman’s club the main ideal to strive for is a band at luncheon, a band at tea, and music throughout dinner. Success is reached when At Homes and big tea parties throng the staircases so that you need a posse of police to clear a way to the silent room on the second, storey. Somebody isi eternally reading a paper. Debates are held periodically. Fencing foils clash in the recreation room. A state apartment is devoted to the storage of barking little toy dogs, and the walls are not padded! In short, man uses his club as a sedative. Woman uses liers as a stimulant. Both are eminently in the right—from their own standpoint. In a man’s club the stan lard of domesticity is of the highest order. The supply of pins on the dressing tables never gives out. Every wli ere ; from the daintiest toilet appurtenances down to the latest dish from Paris, man’s innate talent for domesticity preclaims itself. Some of this perfection is doubtless due to a much larger club subscription than a woman would ever pay. But much of the explanation lies in the fact that many members of a feminine club committee are weary of domestic well-doing at home, and regard their cluli as a very present refuge from housewifery and all its worrying works. Indeed, the latest and smartest ideas among feminine olubbists is to make their club headquarters at an hotel, so that the domestic machinery will be run by masculine and managerial hands. “The club’s spring cleaning, tlie meals and the domesticity thereof is the last straw added to the feminine back, which already bears the burden of these things in her own home,” says the smart little chairman of a well-known ladies’ club. The house committee of a man’s club whi'ch gravely settles all sorts and conditions of housewifely problems regards the task blithely and lightheartedly. It is a novelty to them. To women who face these things day in day out for a lifetime, the task savors somewhat of monotony. Hence the tendency of the modern woman’s club to migrate to an, hotel.

To a woman with few social and intellectual opportunities a club of many receptions, magic lantern displays, debates and lectures, is an oasis in lier dull desert. A busy professional woman, on the other hand, whose life is filled with interests and duties, seeks a club possessing the “dolce far niente” atmosphere of the man's ideal club. The restless activities of the average woman's club, while a boon and a blessing to those at their wits' end to kill time, block out the reposeful element so necessary to the woman Who works. But in the rapid multiplication of feminine clubs the time is close at hand when each type of woman will be able to choose whether she shall join a club famous for the number of parties and musicales it organises, or one in which she may slit serenely in the chimney corner undisturbed by the strains of a foreign hand, the gathering together of big bridge parties, and tbe shrill noise of the lap dogs which delight to bark in the canine sanctum which woman's ingenuity has added to the resources of a club.—“ Daily Chronicle."

Mistress: “This water has a queer taste.” Careful Servant (who has heard much scientific conversation) ; “It’s all right, mum. There ain’t &, live germ in it, mum. I run it through the sausage-machine.”