THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3397, 23 April 1919, Page 54

THE SKETCHER.

CHEEK. The quality of an action depends on whether it is yours or some other person's. Initiative in you is cheek in Jones. On one occasion a timid mouse sipped some whisky. A little later it exclaimed, "Where is that damned cat that chased me yesterday V The mouse thought that courage. Impartial critics would say it was cheek.

Terms become old-fashioned. They need constant revision and replacement. Words become debased by currency among the vulgar. They then become impossible to us who are so refined. "Cheek," for instance, was a term- permissible in the drawing room to describe a quality frequently found in others, but never in ourselves.

Polite people don't mention cheek nowadays. We need an elegant synonym. "Absence of modesty" is too circumlocutory and negative. The trouble is that cheek is a verbal chameleon. Its appearance depends on the angle from which we regard it. Take your own case. AIJ your life you have suffered from a lack of cheek. You can honestly think of no other reason for your lack of success. Your enemies could simply you with many other reasons, your friends with more still.

But the charm of your reason is that it does not cause you shame. Rather you fee] proud of it. If your life has not been successful, your character has been noble. "Well, at all events, I haven't been one of those aggressive bounders. I could have got on better if I had had moro cheek." That is how you talk about it. But remember the- fellows who have got on don't talk that "way about you. If, on the other hand, you have got on —it isyour ability. If Jones has got on—it is his "what-you-may-call-it" cheek. You knew him at school. A cheeky pup even then. A quality so elusive is difficult to focus. It is too bad for blessing and too good for cursing. You submit to some slightly meekly. You think you have given a display of Christian magnanimity. Jones thinks you a hopeless muff. Or you take some firm action. You think it reveals your strength of character. Jones thinks it a piece of blatant cheek. The difficulty is to determine how far you should go to prove you are not a man to be trifled with, and how far you shouldn't go if you don't want to be considered bumptious. Cheek is temperamental. Some kids have to be drawn out; some pushed in. Some always want you to notice how far they can jump, how high they can climb. These are the incipient stages of cheek. Some families positively specialise in it. They inherit it from their parents, they bequeath it to their children. Modest children are as attractive as they are rare. Modern children are repellently cheeky. But they think ifc, and their parents describe it, as cleverness. Cheek is übiquitous. It is the most universal of human attributes. It is the first thing you notice in others, the last thing you notice in yourself. Wherever two or three gather there will be one capable of incredible audacity. The disease devlops abnormally in the presence of the Oriental's natural docility. India is a subject country. Pimply-faced youths, who at Home addressed envelopes and respectfully said "Yes, sir," arrive in India as insurance office clerks. They find the natives grovelling to them. A few months of rt knocks them silly. They begin to bully "these damned niggers just to keep them in their place, you know." In crowded hotels these youths 101 l in chairs and bellow for "Boy" with an imperious ness forty-year veterans could not equal It is all cheek, cheek minus brains. In the social sphere cheek achieves its greatest triumphs. Social importers are more numerous than any other sort. From Perkin Warbeck down the centuries th« bieed has flourished. Some women seem born with a passion for moving in a wider sphere than the one which is their own. Their cheek is colossal. A woman deter mined to soar socially is equal to any effrontery. In London one lady with two daughters —parvenus all—were conspicuous at many public functions where their presence was not acceptable. No one could imagine how they received so many invitations. On one occasion when Royalty was present the lady and her daughters were, as usual, prominent. Just when by their asreression they were about to receive Royal attention, a dignified gentleman i n evening dress approached the lady and asked the favour of a few. words in private. The few words wer9 these: "Get off the premises at once if you don't wish to be eiected." He was a detective. For years the* lady had continued to get a copy of invitation cards issued fo" important functions, and had got exact copies made. On these she inscribed the names of herself and daughters. There is no sphere in which it is not conspicuous. By the aid of cheek half the crimes in the calendar are committed. On steamers it struts the deck with the captain ; in trains it appropriates the luggage racks and the corner seats; in trams, aged 16, it expects the seat occupied by 60. In public and charitable institutions its claims are most shadowy, and its demands are most insistent. Hospitals cannot frame rules cheek cannot circumvent, lb assumes the guise of peripatetic evangelists, a-dvertised and trumpeted, who slang and depreciate the honest men who perform the permanent spiritual work in the community. Before it can be exposed they have passed on. It comes to our front doors to sell us sewing machines or to insure our lives and property. It comes to our back door to offer us tuppence for our two-guinea silk h<tt. In the advertisement columns it asks us to "lend a poor Christian £lO without security, a genuine case." Where cheek is concerned appearance is important. Soma people

have been denied the gift of beauty. But there are so many of that sort we aren't noticed, and need not feel neglected. Some people, however, are born with a " cheeky " look, which frequently affects their popularity. Their look sometimes belies them. But not often. There are people who,- without speaking a word or performang an act, can rouse antagonism in the breast of the most mild-mannered citizens. It is their face that does it. It bears a cheeky look. Of course, there are compensations. Professors of the cheeky look usually are deferred to in public places. Sensitive citizens do not often attempt to infringe the rights of people who look cheeky and capable of making a scene.

The Book of Job is one of the oldest pieces of literature in the world. It is a story of heartless cheek. Three friends come to confer with Job ladened with diseases, and they tell him he must have deserved all he is getting. Their sympathy takes the form- of urging him to own up to the sort of life he has been secretly living. Job very properly resents their cheek.

Even the human race could not get started without this quality asserting itself. In the great misadventure which brought the curse of work upon the human race Adam blamed the woman. Ask any daughter of Eve to-day what she thinks of her venerable ancestor's conduct A thousand pounds to a peanut she will say, "It was a thundering piece of cheek."— Melbourne Age. CURIOUS STRIKES. ODD REASONS FOR LAYING DOWN TOOLS. " Less hours, more pay," is the demand of the strikers to-day, but there is more than one instance on record where workmen have actually "downed tools" for less pay! For a . period of no . less than 20 weeks, for instance, the coal-miners of Durham and Northumberland once remained out on strike as a protest against earning more than three shillings per day. Their idea*—the ostensible idea underlying the present strike—was to make the work go round. A somewhat similar proposal, but for a different reason, caused a curious industrial dispute at Oadby and Leicester in 1884. The Oadby sock-makers offered to take per cent, less wages in order to attract work from Leicester, whereupon the -Leicester operatives offered to take 5 per cent, lessjf the masters promised not to send work to Oadby, and on the offer being declined went on strike to enforce itMen have frequently come out on strike for reasons that had no connection with hours or pay. Upon one occasion every collier employed in a South Wales coalmine came out, and when the troubled and perplexed owner arrived on the scene he found the cause of the strike was that an elderly pit pony (a great favourite with everyone) had been transferred ihe day before to another mine. He was brought back in all haste, and the picks were swinging merrily again within an hour.

It is a dangerous thing to'interfere with old-established customs, as Major Bradon, who about 20 years ago bought the Camforth Copper Mine, found to his cost. His predecessor had been in the habit of giving the men hot soup or cocoa on their arrival in the morning or for the night shift. Thinking this a waste of time, he stopped it, at the same time intimating that compensation would be given in the siiape of a slight increase in pay. Next day not a man was at work. Soup, hot soup, and plenty of it, had to be distributed before the strike ctould be ended.

Superstition jwas.once responsible for a strike among navvies at Dover. One of their mates had been killed while working, and the others, "to the number of several hundreds, were stated to be of the belief that the next gang working on the cliffs at the point where the man had met his death would be the victims of another catastrophe. Matters were settled with difficutly. One of the northern towns was the scene of a curious dispute about a dozen years ago. The aggrieved parties were a number of factory girls, who complained that their foreman had arranged mirrors in the workroom, so that when his back was turned he could still observe all the actions of the girls under his charge. They indignantly, and not without justification, refused to work under such conditions.

Even the sacred precincts of a church has not deterred members of the choir from going on strike. This occurred at Preston, where the officiating clergyman brought a hornet's nest about his ears by accusing, from the pulpit, his choir of talking during the service. At the close the members of the choir denied the accusaticon, and demanded an apology. This was not immediately forthcoming, and the result was that there was no choir that evening. The Psalms had to be read, and the hymns fell dreadfully flat. Next morning the minister intimated that he had no intention of insulting the choir, and the affair was smoothed over.

A certain literary gentleman, known in some circles as the author of stories of the highly sensational and the old "pennydreadful" type, employed a number of hack writers, his method being to furnish the plots and general lines of the stories for them to work up under his name into the thrilling productions referred to. For this he paid thecn about 30s a week. They revolted, demanded higher pay, and rofuised to write any more for him until they got it. This totally unlooked-for crisis fairly put our author into a corner—put the "tin hat'* on him, as they would nowadays says, —and, having quite'a number of pressing contracts on hand, he, much against his will, was forced to accede to the demands of the not-to-highly-paid scribes.

Both footballers and cricketers have refused to play ae a protest against certain grievances. At Celtic Park, for instance,

the directorate were once face to face with a serious predicament. A few minutes before the kick-off, in an important match, three or four of the leading players, for some reason or another, absolutely refused to turn out. The strike was well planned, as the reserves had also a pressing engagement on that afternoon, and things looked black indeed for the success of the famous Celtic brigade. The directorate, nevertheless, by a supreme effort, rose to the occasion, secured "subs.," and eventually pulled off the match without the assistance of the "strikera," who were handed their transfer papers. The famous strike of the Notts eleven and of the Surrey cricketers will still be remembered by old-timers. These were not the only instances of the kind, however, the most notable previous strike being the refusal of the All England Eleven to play against Lilley-White's innovation, overarm bowling, some 80 years ago.