GIRLS CALLED “MEAN”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11247, 27 June 1922, Page 4

GIRLS CALLED “MEAN”

BUT ARE DUALLY CAREFUL. We are apt to use terms rather loosely on occasion designating a thing aa “nice’* when we mean that it is pretty, and calling a person “clever” when we should describe him rather as shrewd. But perhaps there is no word so widely abused at presnt as that of ‘‘moan,*'' an adjetive Mch seems to have taken tho place of “careful” in a good many folks’ vocabularies. “Isn’t Mary mean? She hasn’t had a now frock for three months, and never takes any but jtit seats for the theatre. I don’t believe she spends half her allow* Mice.” This is the type of criticism that is frequently lovellqiLat tho head of girls who prefer not to spend up to the liilt. but to preserve a margin in expenditure. “Money is made for spending,” declares ihe girl who prides herself on not being “mean,” and she promtply proceeds to spend it on—herself. She calls it “open handed’* to scatter her earnings rrs soon as they are received, to forestall the next instalment of salary, and generally take no thought for the morrow. She forgets that someone (the parent in most cases) will have to come to the rescue’ if unemployment or__adversity stop the source of supply at any time, and that this neglect of all foresight and forethought is a good deal “meaner'* than the more thriftv method of expenditure. It is the girl who is careful ("mean** in the parlance of her critics) who has always a shilling or two to offer in the cause of charity, who has prepared for birthdays and Christmases acceptable little presents for her friends, and who when the time of storm and stress arrives is enabled to meet it with eelf-respect. This is a point of view vyorth considering when the thrifty are maligned as the mean.