OVER THE TEACUPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 72

OVER THE TEACUPS.

HIGH SPEED

My dear Readers, — If you are as busy as I am, you will be hoping that "Emmeline won't talk too much " or press her guests to stay too long to-day ! Indeed, I don'fc expect there will be many cups of tea to pour or muck cake eaten.

A charming article in the Girls' Realm recently described an ideal "Home of Rest" for gentlewomen. It is a beautiful house, situated on the edge of Abinger Common, "high, ug in the gaidened, beautiful wUchiess"

of the most lovely part of Surrey, and between it and the prosaic bustle of railway communication witli London lie four miles or more of winding country roads, nestling amid hedgerows here, starred with wild flowers there ; trailing like a white ribbon through quiet villages, winding over breezy commons, drowsing through whispering woods. The house still retains the ancient name of "Goddard's," and has been built by its owner to realise "a perfect home for other people to live" in ; and the bright beauty of the place is at the disposal of those who have not otherwise a proper chance of resting in and enjoying the beautiful country. It is a ' Home of Rest' far weary workers — those who spend their lives under hard and strenuous conditions, nursing, working in a relentless London, which spares neither strength nor energy in its service. ' Goddard'6 'is open as a guest house to such ladies as the owner knows, or of whom he hears, who Tequire a few weeks' complete rest, and have no personal means to obtain it. '

The house itsdf is, from description and illustration, seen to be, indeed, one of unending delight. Designed and carried out regardless of cost, the embodiment of modern comfort . in old-fashioned externals is in perfect harmony. With that true art which conceals itself under ihe appearance «f entire simplicity, this lovely house and its grounds are brought into perfect harmony with the surrounding landscape, and have in every detail the semblance of mellow age. The overhanging eaves show old stone slabs, with moss oluiging to their warm greyness. Old flagstones, too, have been collected to pave the flowered courtyards, where dear, old-fashioned flowers flourish between the crevices ; aid mill-

stones form the base of the smndial, and the wide, low step of a doer. A wall has besn terraced to make an old-fashioned wall garden, where tweet-flowering plants, " forgotten in. our modern, flatly-bedded gardens, grow luxuriantly. -~~

But one cannot live quite out of doors, end indoor amusement is provided for in the long skittle alley, -with its wide^ latticed ■windows looking on to the garden, its low-raftered recesses, where settees invite rest, and little tables suggest the writing of letters or reading of books and the carved work of Grinling Gibbons invites to the pleasant idleness of mere admiration. Nor this alone. There is a charming, wide, "long loft," which provides for all sorts of indoor games, and, moreover, gains from its panelled linen cupboards, pictures, raftered ceiling, and the unending" delight of its wide view from the windows charms all its awn. ' Amid the old-fashioned furniture of the bright common room, a Broadwood "Grand piano looks quite in harmony by reason of its case of unpolished -•wood. The . daintily T appointed bedrooms, with their old-world-jnirrws and quaint furniture,- lack no detail of most" modern comfort and "convenience disguised in the excellent simplicity of Harris wares. How lovely it all sounds, doesn't it? i-^d without being either carping or envious, how natnral to wish one could be a hardworking, tired English gentlewoman instead of only a colonial ditto i "A Slanic Salt Mine" was the title which aroused my instant curiosity as I ttirned the pages of the Strand Magazine — listlessly, too, for the Strand is a magazine Ido not affect. What was thi meaning of "slanic"? I wonder if you know any more about it than I did? To me it was news to read about Roumanian salt mines, and find how many there were, and of the tremendous size and extent of the

two at Slanic.

One dates back to the

time of the Romans, whose method was to "make bottle-shaped excavations close to one another, whereas the modern method is to cut horizontal galleries into the rock, leaving high pillars of salt to support the roof of earth. I like the strange picture Bummed up in these lines of description: "We stepped out on to the floor of a Titanic Cathedral, a vast Basilica, where armies might have knelt in prayer, and ■where people who knew no other world aright easily imagine that this was the universe. Even the great, strong electric globes couia only create a dim religious light in. this huge edifice. ' Here along €he various galleries and aisles move hundreds of busy workers, their figures d"w arf ed utter insignificance by the vastness and strangeness of their surioundings. j

"The atmosphere was utterly unlike any

I have ever breathed elsewhere. It was very dry, very pungent, highly exhilarating, like some mineral water transformed into a gas. There was pleasure in quaffing it with deep breaths, but presently as you licked your lips you tasted salt, you smelt salt, you felt yourself impregnated with gait. It was almost possible to realise the sensations of Lot's wife." So great is the thirst engendered by this salt -laden atmosphere that a perpetual and imperious desire to - drink something — anything — is the result among the miners, and few of them escape becoming habitual topers. Absoluts teetotalism is enforced during ■working hours, but directly the men emerge from their saline prison house they make for the publichouses kept by Jew publicans at the pit? s mouth, and slake their thirst in unending potations.

Not least among the quaint and original

attractions of a Roumanian salt mine is the perpetuation -of methods and implements •used there from the earliest ages. Not from conservatism or ignorance, but on the solid grounds of pecuniary advantage. Machinery was tried in the mines, but was' found to increase instead of decrease the expense of production. It is true that more salt was produced in a given time. and there was less waste. On the other hand, men are cheaper than machinery in Roumania, and some of the mines are worked by convicts, who are cheaper still. As to the* waste of raw material, since the supply of salt is practically inexhaustible, that is unimportant. So the old picturesque methods go on under the new -electric light, precisely as they did hundreds of years ago. One more little picture before jre shut tie pages; it describes a peep

down into the lower levels of the newmine.

"A litt 7 e trap-door about 2ft square was pulled up, and I beheld one of the most remarkable sights in the world. Hundreds of feet below, upon a rugged field of dazzling whiteness, suggestive of the ice pack of Arctic regions, herds of men, each apparently as large as a cheese mite, moved unceasingly to and fro like the occupants of an ant heap. Here and there points of electric light shone like suspended stars. . . . A hushed tinkling noise came up from the depths like fairy music as I watched the graceful movements of these remote human insects."

Don't you call it interesting? Mrs George Cornwallis West, who certainly has every opportunity of studying the subject, writes in Pearson's Magazine on the subject of "Modern Manners." It is a matter of frequent remark among the elders of our own society that "young colonials have no manners," but in reading the above article one is inclined to decide that no manners are better than bad manners. Where we colonials fail in social observances, goodness of heart and kind feeling often come to our aid with the happiest results. It would seem that in the case of smart- society at Home, the outward expression of good manners failing,- there is absolutely nothing to fall back upon, and the guests of the -week end or the evening are as frankly v indifferent to the convenience or pleasure of their" host and hostess as the boarders at an hotel, coming and going to suit their own convenience entirely. As to much that is written concerning the faults and follies of modern society, Mrs West observes very truly that "to criticise from the outside must be

rather difficult and somewhat inaccurate." Much that is written about modern manners and modern society is written by outsiders who have no personal experience to correct their criticism. As to the free-and-easy familiarity of guests who arrive ' and depart to suit themselves, thus necessitating the preparation of extra meals, etc., and ignoring any obligation to contribute to the success of the house party by making their own arrangements, keeping their own times, pursuing their own avocations, and in brief merely rendering their visit" a personal change on the cheap, there would appear to be two sides to the question. The host and hostess, on their part, claim equal freedom of action, and consider themselves free from any old-fashioned obligation as to being on the spot to receive their guests on arrival, and disdain many of the courtesies which were at one time considered indispensable qualities for the "reputation of '"an excellent hostess."

Space, however, warns me that I must not linger on this topic, ox indeed any other, for I have still to offer you all, my dear readers, my kindest wishes for health, hope, and happiness this Christmas and New Year. — Your attached

EMMELINE.