“DRAWING THE LONG BOW”

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11661, 27 October 1923, Page 12

“DRAWING THE LONG BOW”

A SKETCH (For tlio “N.Z. Times.'’) Meeting a visitor to New Zealand interested in women’s work in different parts of the world, the resident asked her what she considered the outstanding characteristic of “modern” women, when she heard the unexpected reply, “Without a doubt it is a love of exaggeratiofi. 'T might U6e a much stronger word, for in nine out of every ten cases, tho weakness I speak of amounts to simply lying—ugly as the wal'd may sound.’’ Yes! It is astonishing how many women are afflicted with this passion—it seems so stupid, as they meet people, who may like to verify some statement; and any pleasure in conversation ceases for them when they know they cannot rely on a single statement being absolutely correct. ■

This exaggeration affords the observer much food for thought; first and foremost generally being, the utter want of ordinary intelligence in those indulging in it. A woman tells you she has just paid thirty-five shillings for a hat; you may have tried on the identical one in the shop before she bought it, and the price asked was ten and sixpence. She tells you her costume cost ten guineas at the same place; you know it cost three pounds ten. at a “sale” there!

A person wins thirty shillings at the races, the amount in about a fortnight is given out as being in the neighbourhood of thirty pounds. A man buys a small house, his wife tells you they paid one thousand five hundred pounds for it; the truth is they secured tho place for six hundred and fifty pounds.

A “section” in a certain neighbourhood has been bought by her husband’s friend for over a thousand pounds; you reserve the information that similar “sections” in the same district were advertised in that day’s paper for three hundred pounds. There would he no fun in contesting every stupid statement, you are getting a fund of silent amusement that money could not buy. A friend of theirs had an internal pain, five doctors were called in, three remaining at the bedside of the patient all night! All no good I A nursing home —operation seventy guineas—and “d’you know,” residence there cost twenty guineas a week 1 You facetiously suggest that perhaps a hob water jar might have saved some of tho expense, but your remarks are unheeded, and the voice of the gossip goes on, “after the operation, d’you know, the carpet was nearly worn out with the large amount of visitors going backwards and forwards to see her, my friend was such a favourite.”

As for incomes, tlio number of hundreds, added, when a man has anything over three hundred a year, is one of the most general and dearly-loved form of exaggeration. Or it may be a man in some trade—where a full account of the recent award may have jnst appeared in all the papers—the retailer of gossip is quite heedless of this, and the figures are doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled, according to fancy, and according to the type of person they want to impress. This is excessively stupid. Why, oh 1 why, instead of gossip—exaggerated or otherwise—do not these women try to get a few useful facts into their brains, if they have any, and which might pTpve a more luorative way of putting in their time, and leave severely alone the impressing of casual acquaintances p Casual acquaintances, whose personal knowledge of the subject or person under discussion might be a great surprise to them. Bad as this trait is in persons of mature years, it is appalling to meet young people who can look you straight in the face and tell you stories of persons they said they had met, elaborating the details, thinking by so doing that the listener never doubted that the tale was not quite true. The fact never occurring to their stupid minds that the listener was well aware that there was not a word of truth in their .statements from beginning to end. The only effect they did make in the listener's mind was a growing contempt of themselves and their want of truth fulness. Ono wondered when this tendency, which was growing by leaps and bounds, would cease. Sanely the women did not want to get a world wide reputation for a want of truth fulness in all their statements. Ono could almost see a time when the reputation of the whole country might be involved, if some number of persons did not band themselves together with an unflinching determination to combat this most objectionable vulgarity. The old adage, “Think before you speak,” may sound in these (?) advanced times almost obsolete advice. jn the mad whirl of silly ‘‘rushing” but called work by some, you would probably hoar the remark, “If 1 thought before I spoke, I should never speak at all.” What a blessing this would be in soma cases! When the tired victim of some retailer of gossip, listens meekly, trying to follow p labyrinth of detail m connection with some story, too polite to stop the torrent, till it reaches the inevitable precipice—the spent strength of the retailer, or some fortunate interruption. The famous words of the great Carlyle are extraordinarily applicable to the present day life, lived by the vast unthinking majority. He says: “Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with littlo worth, one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence. “The noble, silent men scattered here and there, each in his department; silently thinking, silently working; whom no morning newspaper makes mention of.” • • • • *

Many exaggerations lo which socalled '“modern” women are prone are said to bo the outcome of the lurid life lived by many during and since the Great War 1 Everything by some of these individuals is required to be highly flavoured to be at all acceptable. Pictures exaggerating every phase of life are patronised, particularly when fiaringly advertised by such phrases as “You will be thrilled and shocked,” and pictures of this kind are rushed to by vulgar-minded women of all ages. The limit of exaggerated ugliness in tho way of apparel seems to have been reached. Taken all round, no other age seems to have produced such a multitudinous assortment of ugly garments.

Cheap florail “horrors” in tho way of gaudy materials, skimpily made, in impossible hues, giving our “Caricature Artists” unlimited scope for displaying (?) fashionable human monstrosities.

Metal hats—with tinsel-trimmed outdoor wear, reminiscent of cast-off pantomime properties—are seen above the powdered faces of old women, who totter in high-heeled shoes up and down steep streets, displaying their poor old rickety legs for the amusement of all and sundry.

Exaggeration in scents and soaps is another present-day vulgarity j scent 6

that “shriek,” and soaps that produce nauseating symptoms where crowds forgather. Displays of underwear—of very exaggerated cut and 6tyle—in windows of second-rate shops, never fail to draw-present-day seekers after sensations. Y&3! the retailer of sensational gossip and the wearer in public streets of sensational clothing are closely related. To draw attention to themselves in any and every way seems to be the steady aim of women of all ages in our streets to-day. Watch any crowd at a street corner, waiting for the public cars, the selfconscious, attitudinising, the surreptitious “making up” in the public street, the wooden smiles, and “glad eyes” always in evidence, make the quietgoing shudder at the huge army of women who are at tho present day apeing the manners, dress, and behaviour of the demi-mondaine. • • • • •

Criticism is good for the soul, whether of an individual or of a nation, and the individual or nation who objects to such is only betraying a state of fright, at the probable exposure of their personal or national ignorance. —LAURA JEAN VICTORY.