COUNTRY V. CITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19013, 8 November 1923, Page 8

COUNTRY V. CITY

I think it is unlikely that rural England will ever see me again, remarks a city man who recently ventured into the country. I have returned from the depths of the* country. The ways of rusticity are indelibly engraved on the tablets of my memory. The knowledge will last me a lifetime. lam content. “I have rented a delightful old thatched cottage in the heart of Buckinghamshire,” wrote my friend. “Come and live the simple life.” Being of a trusting nature I went. I 1 or a whole week 1 have led the “simple life,” and know it now for wliat it is: a highly complicated form of hard labour, which, if persisted in, leads to utter misery. Nothing about it is simple. Even to reach the =c»ne of simplicity necessitates a long, painful journey involving several changes, and. once there, life is a perpetual struggle for existence. ... The most ordinary articles, of food, plentiful in the cities,’ are as rare as dodos in rustic England. One wou-d imagine, for instance, that nowhere would milk and butter be so easily obtainable, as in the country. Seven days ago I was under that impression myself. P know better now. There is no milk or butter in the country. It is all sold to London. Either one has butter sent down from the stores and is content with tinned milk, or one joins one’s neighbours in purchasing a communal cow—in itself a complicated beast. It is much the same with fuel. In the more populated regions this, in the form of coal, is shot into the cellar through a hole in the pavement. Apparently there is no coal in the country. If fuel is required one gets up and saws a piece off a fallen tree before breakfast. This is a very disheartening operation, besides being bad for the boots, owing to the saw jumping. In every other aspect the “simple life” is just as impossible. That this is really so is made clear, I think, by the following comparison;— Day in the Life of a City Man. — 8 a.m.—Rise, turn on bath, bathe, shave, dress, breakfast, and catch 9.5 a.m. I p.m.—Lunch at restaurant or club. 5.30 p.m.—Return home. Enjoy sports: tennis, golf, croquet, or billiards. 8 p.m.—Dine II p.m.—Retire to bed. Day in the Life of a “Simple Lifer.”— 6 a.m.—Rise reluctantly, put on dressinggown, and go out to pump-house and draw water. 6.30 a.m.—Return to bedroom, bump head on beam, put on boots, and saw logs. 7 a.m.—Assist at milking of the communal cow. Y. 45 a.m.—Give up all idea of milking communal cow. Return to kitchen, bum.i> head on beam, and search for tin-opener. 8 a.m. —Endeavour to light fire. 8.30 a.m.—Endeavour to light fire again. 9 a.m.—Give up all idea of lighting fire. \Vash under pump, breakfast on remains of previous evening’s supper, and walk into nearest village (six mi’.es) to request that a man be sent to remove birds’ nests from chimney. 12.30 p.m.—Totter back to thatched cottage and dig up vegetables. Bad. Throw them away. 12.46 p.m.—Chase communal cow out of garden and replace remaining tomato plants. 1 p.m.—Lunch on bread and cheese. 1.45 p.m Tap barometer. 2 p.m. to 5.29 p.m. —Pump more water, saw more logs, endeavour to light fire again, chase communal cow out of garden. 5.30 p.m.—Enjoy sports (i.e., kill wasps). 6 p.m.—Dine on bread. (There is no cheese left.) 7 p.m.—Retire to bedroom, bump head on beam, and go to bed thoroughly disgusted. Yes, I hardly think it is likely that rural England will see me again. I have returned to the “complicated life” for good. Publishers are notoriously autocratic, and any suggestion which affects their particular domain must be put forward with the most profound diffidence, observes the Morning Rost. The writer, however, begs to suggest in the humblest way in the world that different subjects should be marked by the use of a specified colour for the binding. Thus, if all history books were red, all scientific books green, all art yellow, etc., it would be possible for the most untidy private librarian to be certain that lie is on the right subject, without the annoyance caused by picking up a book which looks like science and isn't. The different scientific subjects could bo distinguished by different shades of green, nrd so on. Tugging at the tablecloth, Patricia IrMi, a It months old baby, of Fulham, London, upset a cun of hot cocoa over her face ana neck. She was taken to the Victoria Hospital, but scarlet fever developed, and »ho was removed to the Western Fever J,Tos\rtal, West Brompton, where ahb died. At aa inquest death was attributed to shock following i burns.