THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22903, 10 June 1936, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

Wayfarer.

Pleasant conjecture upon whom one may meet, and In what circumstances, when stepping heavenwards, is all very well; but there is a reverse side to this picture. What if, by some miscalculation, we find ourselves proceeding in a direction due south, as one might say, into a far from heavenly atmosphere? How is the company there, and of what quality? It is a speculation even the saintliest of us may indulge in, in our more Fundamentalist moments.

Happily, though we speak without final authority in this Burning Question, the indications are not as bad as we had apprehended. First, a story which illustrates the point. Brown shuffled off this mortal coil into regions unknown. Pitchforked into a place in the queue, he was forced to wait in some disquiet of mind while the Devil interrogated two earlier customers. . „ , .. , . “ Now,” said he to the first, what did you do before you came here? ” “ Satan,” replied his visitor, ‘ I can claim that I led a good life. I did not smoke. I paid my radio instalments regularly, and I saved money; neither had I any truck with women.” “Oh,” said the Devil politely, holding a door open. “Just step in here, if you please.” The visitor did so, in a cloud of steam. "Now. what about you? asked the Devil of the second man. “ I, too,” he replied, “ have done no wrong. Rather I did much good, being partly responsible for the tightening up of licensing regulations, and the establishment of a closer censorship of kinema films. I neither drank nor smoked, and I kept my wife and family resolutely away from those frivolous pleasures for which they showed a yearning.” He was conducted, with equal courtesv. through the same door. ‘ 7 You’re next,” the Devil remarked to Brown. “What’s your record?” "Well. Mr Satan,” said Brown, a trifle nervously, “ I’m afraid there’s not much I can say. I had a pretty good time, one way and another, Hint with the nubs and the ponies and the girl friends. I guess I’ve got to take what you give me.” “Good,” said the Devil, shaking Brown’s hand warmly. " Now Just wait a minute while I cook these two chaps I put through this door, and then we’ll go and have a drink.”

It is, if we might say so, an infernally cheering tale, and we trust the source is reliable.

But even those people who have a more dismal view of what’s going to happen, allow us a little comfort. The leading authority on the subject, by name Dante Alighieri, who made a sort of Cook’s tour of the region whence no tourist returns, gives ue rather a depressing sketch of the countryside, yet as we descend with him, we do at least pass some interesting people by the way. For example:— First floor—- , Hector Julius Ccesar Orpheus Aristotle Socrates Plato Galen' Second floor— Semiramis Cleopatra Helen of Troy Achilles and Paris Francesca Dido Third floor— Ciacco Below this, the company becomes, perhaps, a trifle mixed —Frederick 11, Alexander the Great, Ulysses, Mahomet, Potiphar’s .wife, Brutus and Cassius, among others. Not, we must admit, just the people one would ask to one’s birthday party.

But, as we remarked, they are all interesting people, still interesting, however far we proceed with Dante ns the lift-boy. As Aucassin reflected: —

. . . into hell am willing to go; for to hell go the fine clerks and the fair knights who have fallen in jousts and in ripe wars, and the skilled warriors and the brave men. With these I am fain to go. There also go the courteous ladies. . . . And there go the gold and silver and ermines and the grey furs; there, too, the harpers and the rhymers and the kings of the world. With these will I go, too. , .

It’s not, if you understand, that we are persuading anybody to change their present plans, and go there too. But some there are, even conceivably among our readers, who will experience no difficulty in making the journey, and it mtw be consoling to them to know they will have some celebrities to talk to —not to mention most of their own familiar friends.

The radio introduces a new type of Malapropism into out not-so-sequestered lives. We have now i.ot only to guess on occasion what a person meant to say and failed to (as in the days when the Yellow-back was the standard postprandial fireside entertainment), but also to decide what lie moans by what he does say. One evening spent with the loud-speaker at our attentive ear may yield full measure of enigmatic announcements. There is the announcer, for instance who last w T eek sent a “ Cheerio ” to Miss Blank on having obtained her majority; though whether by honest growth, or some such questionable means as subtracting six summers from the total of her years, he failed to reveal. And there is the local station which announced the death of an American crooner

of an illness which originated in Eng-

land and culminated in pneumonia. A statement, we may say, which sent us fruitlessly searching our atlas in the hopes of finding the town in the Middle West where the tragedy ended. For candour, however, we prefer the hail which went over' the air to dear old Mre Blot, who was celebrating her seventieth birthday:—

Well, Mrs Blot, we are pleased to know that you have attained such a fine round figure. . . To which we can only add the pious hope that buxom Mrs Blot was equally happy to have it known.

Making for a moment the courteous assumption that wives are chosen, jgther than thrust themselves upon us, there is the question of selection to be pondered. Reich Minister Rudolf Hess has one idea:—

Addressing a Nazi women’s organisation. he said he did not want the Gretchen type, whose interests were supposed to be confined to the church, the kitchen and children, and whom foreigners conceived as a limited, characterless being. The Nazi ideal was a woman spiritually competent to stand by her husband’s side in complete understanding of his life struggle, especially one capable of motherhood.

Spiritual support and babies are, no doubt, great blessings for a spouse to bestow on her man; but there Is a strange lack of the suggestion that these superwomen might also provide a little financial support. It is a consideration that may not be disregarded by the thriftv husbandman in these times.

Personally, we have a liking for what may be called the more utilitarian type of wife, who (call her Gretchen if you like) keeps her spirituality for Sunday, and other days stands by her husband with choice dishes prepared with her capable hands, while he sits placidly and eats from them. Here is an ideal which has been beautifully wrought into words by Tawanui’s sweetest singer:—

Wanted a wife who can handle a broom. To brush down tho cobwebs, and sweep up tho room: Who can make decent bread that a fellow can eat, Not that horrible compound you everywhere meet: Who knows how to wash, to Iron, and bake, . And Is able of all things to make a good Who makes her own garments with nice fancy stitches. And will sew up the rips in a follow's old breeches — A commonsense creature, and still with a mind To teach and to guide. Exalted, refined! A sort of an angel and housewife combined. As Tawanui thinks (it has been said) so thinks tho nation, and one greets the domestic specifications provided by the local poet laureate with approval. From the dust cover of a recent autobiography: “The book is serious, humorous, satirical, whimsical, funny, rude and frank." But is it worth reading? The Emperor Sellassie refreshed visitors to his London residence on Italian vermouth. Doubtless with a dash of bitter. Simultaneously, we understand, Signor Mussolini, as a gesture to the vanquished Ethiopian, has changed his spots to asses’ milk aerated with mustard gas.

There is reported to be a shortage of fish in Paris. So one must blame the strikers or the'Government for the present malodorous state of affairs there.