JULIA JONES'S JJGAMAREE.

NZ Truth, Issue 353, 30 March 1912, Page 8

JULIA JONES'S JJGAMAREE.

Scott's Idea of a "Pla" - tonic Friendship. What is Platonic friendship — or love ? It may start with a good curate exchanging conversation lollies and holy thoughts with the best girl m his Young Women's Bible Class. Or it may start with the dark-eyed young woman telling the young man whom she met at the euchre tournament that she is misunderstood, and that he alone understands the • play of her noble thoughts. Or it may even start by the grass-widow asking the young man boarder to fetch her home a drop of gin and peppermint, because she feels a little faint. Or it may start by the wowser temperance reformer persuading his PRETTY FEMALE TYPIST to sign a pledge not to touch, taste or smell. Or it may^stait — But why continue? Platonic friendship starts m various ways. But — alas for human frailty ! it has only one end. Platonic friendship is supposed to be a pure, perfect, passionless regard between two persons of opposite sexes. It was invented by one Plato, a Greek philosopher, who flourished some hundreds of years before the Christian era. Plato called his Platonic love the love of soul for soul— & love into which sensual desire was supposed not to enter at all. Aheir.ll What Plato got out of his precious, discovery history does not reveal. Byron, the English poet, and himself a man who knew all there was to be known about love — Platonic or otherwise — SUMMED UP HIS OPINION of Plato and the Platonic business In the following verse :■ — Oh, Plato ! Plato ! you have paved the way, With your confounded fantasies, to more Immoral conduct by the landed sway Your system feigns o"er the controlless core Of human hearts, than all the long array Of poets and romancers — You're a bore, A charlatan, a coxcomb — and have * been, At best, no better thah a gobetween. ! But m spite of what Byron says, .the world has stuck to what it calls, m its unsober moments, "Platonic love," with s a persistence worthy of a, better cause. You ask any man; after his third drink, whether he believes m Platonic love, and he'll tell you that he. does. When he gets home m the ' small hours and sees his wife sitting up m bed, rigid waiting for him, he doesn't believe m love at all. And every woman is an enthusiastic follower of i J lato's — the Lord knows why. The sex ,ias fallen in — once or twice — on this racket. Most persons, deep m the inmost recesses or their hearts | HAVE THEIR OWN IDEA of what Platonic love really is. They believe that the. secret has been revealed to the,m alone, and that they have the real brand. All others i are merely spurious imitations. I Horace George Scott, a grain sampler, living- at East Ha<m, m this sad land of England, thinks that misconducting himself with a barmaid constitutes true Platonic love. j You may not agree with him, but hear his strange story before you judge. Hear it as 1 neard it the other day, sitting shiverinsr m a foggy, cold London court, for that express purpose. /' Miss .lulia Jones sued Horace, at the court I speak of, for breach of promise. Julia used to jerk beer m ; a pub at Feckham, To her one day there entered Horace. He ordered a small bitter, and started to talk. His conversational powers so pleased the. fair. Julia, that she willingly accepted the .grain sampler's invitation to "go and see the pictures" that night. The friendship, thus started, continued. 1 "Last January I promised to marry him and GO OUT TO AUSTRALIA with him," Julia told the court ; and a child was born the following September." You would think, from the way Julia told the story, that the mere mention of Australia was responsible. Australia has been called, by some of its beer bards, the fertile land of promise. But, however, it came about, Julia had a baby. Before the infant made its appearance the banns were put up between Julia, and Horace, and it was arranged that they should get married on Whit Monday. But Horace instead slipped Julia up, and married some- i body else. j Horace struck me as a casual soul, j He admitted m the box that he had \ misconducted himself with the frail ; Julia, after ha-vlng sundry drinks m ! the pub,, where she used to jerk i ; ecr, | "but," said Horace, "it was a Pla- j

■ tome frietsi'iship." I wr,.T*ii the .j'.jfi^-i>. Miprlly mnark.---i c:ti : * " 1 Jici you .say J.'L'.iomc, ; <«k vo\ic i-'!U!-:Ni)Si(ip v" v. fiji-ii w(i. : . a really good thing for & ji.'rt.irv io say. I .7 io cacc's i'lul'onic 1 friendßhip with ! .'u!ia cost him a hundred quid, which sva.s (lie amount of ii;.niiM&of? the jury j awarded t,-> thtit. damsel. So you are hardly likely to see Horace out your v.iiv this year. He'll have io save up so."!e wiore money firs I:-. Tossirily you may be abi.H to carry on without him.