THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3168, 2 December 1914, Page 65

THE WEEK.

Show week was not favoured by the best of weather this year. One never quite knows what to expect at this time of year, and our country visitors must have a difficulty in selecting their wardrobes for their little jaunt to town, for we sometimes run through the whole round of the seasons in about three days. Sunshine, wind, and rain we get with quite disconcerting variety, but lately it is the two latter that have favoured us the most. It has not been so bad as last year, though. Will we ever forget those weeks and weeks of apparently endless wet right up to Christmas, which combined with the strike to reduce us to the lowest depths of damp depression? If we had had that sort of weather on top of the war- I do not know what the result would have been, but we have had a few good days sprinkled about, and on the Show holiday it was not till well in the afternoon that the rain began to fall, though the sky looked threatening enough all day to keep many people away, and the crowd was not so great as usual. As is generally the case, we gave our country cousins as much opportunity for spending as we could during the Show Week; .but this time is was not so much for our own benefit as the benefit of others, and the two meetings at the Garrison Hall and the collecting on Hospital Saturday all brought forth a goodly harvest of men and money, those two vital factors in the present struggle. The question of recruiting in Otago is a somewhat thorny one, and I have no desire to embark on a discussion concerning it, but as far as one can gather it does seem that in the haste of the first arrangements an unfair proportion was asked for from Otago. Still, we should like to feel that we had done what was asked of us, and besides, the time may be coming when every fit and able man may be wanted. We little thought it would be so away back in the beginning of things, wdien it all seemed so dreadful that we thought it could not possibly last for long. /‘lt will be over by Christmas,” we said confidently, and now Christmas is nearly here, and the struggle is only deepening in intensity, and we shall have to send more men, and still more men, for we know it is the only way. But it is not altogether easy to let them go. It was with very mixed feelings that one watched the latest recruits lining up on the stage the other night. The cheering and anplause as each man went up must have stirred the heart of any laggard there who could go and yet has so far hung back ; and yet behind all the cheering there was the thought that it is no light thing that we are asking of our men when we call on them to go to_ certain discomfort and danger and possible death for our sakes. We who stay behind are justified in cheering only because we know that manv of us would go ourselves if we could. If women had been wanted at that meeting there would have been hundreds enrolled. “And if the men won’t go—we’ll send the women!” was the conclusion of one speaker’s address, and I saw one or two eager ones half rise from their seats as if they would say “Here am I, send me.” But it is men’s work out there, and we have to expend our energies on the various odd jobs that have to be done at home. Perhaps that is why Hospital Saturday was such a success. 'A great deal depends on the public, of course, and there-is help given in all sorts of ways, from the men officials on the committee to the Boy Scouts who blacked boots at 3d a pair, but the burden of the day falls on the girl collectors and the women who organise the different stands. I had nearly written the heat and burden of the day.” when I remembered that there was only too little heat about it. A bitter wind searched the streets, making the task of the collectors at exposed corners anything but a pleasant one, and appearing to wither up the flowers quicker than the sunshine would have done. Fresh supplies came in continually, however, and the stands were masses of colour all day long. Poses were in great demand, and so were sweet peas, though it is ear.lv days yet for the latter, and there were not enough to meet the popular fanev Fortunately the weather was fine in the afternoon, and the streets were thronged with sightseers, who paid handsomely for their "entertainment hy raising the takings for the day to a total that heat all previous records, and is hardlv likelv to be attained by another Hospital Saturday, unless a cause like brave little Belgium’s he again combined with it. ELIZABETH.