NEW CHUM NO. IV.

Timaru Herald, Volume XV, Issue 659, 20 September 1871, Page 2

NEW CHUM NO. IV.

It is wonderful what aa amount of work is dove by the ladies m New Zealand. In » letter which I gave last week a friend of mine spoke of some of them haring to do a good part of the housemaids' duties, betides being housekeeper, and, m some cases, cook into the bargain. And, indeed, to a Britisher fresh from home, this is one of the oddest features m the social life of the colony. I shall never forget the way m which it was first brought home to my mind. I bad gone to call upon a friend whom I had known some years before m England. Since I saw him lust he had married a lady whom I did not know. I found hU house a comfortable looking building from the front and large m comparison with the houses near it. But the grounds had been so arrauged that from the approach a blank end alone waa fo be seen without even a ohironey to relieve it. "Very like a barn," thought I as I glanced iiivoluuturily at the gable-top m search of an owl-hole. However, u_y opinion was soon changed as I came round to another side und faced his hall door. It whs a good house with lui-ge windows and a huge verandah. (Bye-the-way, 1 wonder why uearly all tlm private houses here have verandahs?) Before I left England I had no idea that wouiluii houses were ever built m such style — so line ond roomy. On coming to the door, 1 knocked— l could not ring, as there was no> bell (another peculiarity!) — und a very tidyluoking person appeared, who, with dignified air, asked whom 1 wanted to see. She should not have had occasion u> ask, but 1 was thinkiug of my note-book, and the pages there would be to write concerning the elegant chignon and refined tout eiixembte that were before me — " A colonial parlor-maid ! My word ! what au improvement on tha dowdy objects that present themselves at home ! Hjre i« a specimen, neither gaudy nor shabby neither bold nor simpering. A pattern of politeness and refinement ! The old regulation print and cotton cap, of which the latter seemed always on the verge of floating away, and would verily have gone but for the faithful hair pin on the top) — these old emblems of subjection are gone, and liberty asserts itself, not m the form of tawdry finery aa m radical households of the old country j but m a becoming dress, at once neat, simple, and good 1" Such was the soliloquy which obliged my fair interrogator to ask and repeat her question. : "Who do you wish to see ?" Mr W ," said I, at length, recollecting myself, "is lie at home ?" " No ; he is not at home : he has gone away for a week," she replied. Hu ! —Home!— Has!— My Jove,"' I muttered, " she doesn't even murder her H's !" " Gone away for a week ! Well, and where m the world has he gone to ?" [N.B. — Tlub impertinent question was asked m another fit of abstraction.] " Out of town," was the answer. " Very well," said I, then please to give him this card, and say that I'll call when he return*." I did call when Mr W- — returned, and he introduced me to Mrs W . What my feelings were, as I caught m her the eye, ana recognised the fora, or my friead the parlour maid, may be easily imagined. What could I do ? To apologise for my free and easy manner at our former meeting, would have been to own my mistake and tell Mrs W , that she had been mistaken for a domestic j yet if! said nothing about it, I waa on the nick of being considered a bear. However, it seemed better on the whole to say nothing, so I endeavoured to pass the matter over, ofiaqging my manner by slow and as I hoped imperceptible degrees. Thus ended this little episode, and I may add, that, when I came to be better acquainted with Mrs W , she told me of the same mistake being made by another gentleman, who was foolish enough to put himself m the most awful predicament by offering a clumsy apology. So inconvenient is the custom of answering oue's own bell-door, door-knocker I mean! But there is another reason why I should always remember that day ; it was then that I first went to one of the famous Canterbury bazaars. It appears that these little exhibitions of polite swindling are all the go m r this part of the world : one does hear of such things at home, and occasionally, perhaps, is victimised into visiting them, but m England they do not come m suoh numbers as they do here, nor is it quite so difficult to go to six retpeotable houses m succession without finding somebody who is working for one. The other -day, I was asked to work for a ' bazaar myself. The person who was charitable enough, to make the request, and give me such a chance of doing good, was a lady, who, to a superficial observer, would have appeared to be knitting stockings for her life. At first I really thought she must be, but I was soon undeceived j for like the fox m JSeop's fables, who, having lost bis own tail m ft trap, tried to persuade his brethren to co* off theirs and be like him — this new aognaintaitOß—alive to the fact that she bad been inveigled into saortfeing her comfort to do what sba heartily disliked— tried to bring me into a similar state of condemnation. The great propriety of helping was clearly laid before me. The object of the basaar was to assist some parish to pay off their building debt or to aid m the erection of a school or assembly room or something of the kind.' X do not remember whioh, for to tell the truth, 1 did not take muoh interest m the matter. But at any rate, it was to advance the publio good m some form or other. And the great > advantage of raising money m .this . fashion was, that every shilling laid out by the oori» tributors would ultimately bring m ten

>n i"'"g"- In* short the selllrs would get the thanks, and the buyers bear the burden $ at which the totter could not complain, as it * natty mas Jor such a very worthy purpose.' Then again.it would do me personally so much good, to have something to spend ray spare time upon. "I might turn, n few candlesticks of native wood, make some pretty inlaid boxes, or a set of ohess men, anything would do, or if I was not bandy enough at the lathe, why, I might very easily do a little carpet wool work; lot* of gentlemen had done saoh things before ; and the object, you know, was so worthy; would not that be much better than wasting time upon tobacco and yellow-backed novels as I usually did." All this and much more was urged upon me, m a strain of agonised special pleading. But I could not see it ; and so was firm m declining. Sinoe that time I have heard from the same person other arguments for contributing whioh are even more cogent than those. Amongst them was one which I quote merely on account of its originality. I was told that if I could only bring myself to spend ten minutes a day on work for the bazaar (and, through it, for the charitable purpose m question), I should find myself rewarded a handled fold by the healthy tone of mind to whioh suoh steady self-sacrifice would bring me 1 This sounded very well at first, and, I own, I felt inclined to make a beginning. But my faith m the prospect was afterwards rather shaken by the discovery that if I did contribute anything, "it could be so easily delivered with the stockings," and, doubtless, m such a manner that it would be taken as coming from the same party. To return to my subjeot, however. I was going to give a full account of my first visit to a Canterbury basaar. But ■I am afraid that I shall now have neither time nor space to treat this exalted theme as it deserves. It was much against my will that I was induced to partake m a scene so painfully absurd ; but I went, I spite of my dislike, and, to be brief, my experiences were as follows : — The basaar was held man upstair room. I had to pay a shilling for walking up the stairs and two shillings for arriving at the top. I had scarcely been m the room for half a minute, when I was attacked on all sides by fair nymphs, with flowers for the button-hole, " going cheap at only one and sixpence each." And I had not worn any bouquet long, before the flower vendors or their male accomplices, contrived that it should be either stolen or spoilt ; after whioh I was beset with fresh entreaties until I purchased another. Betides many repetitions of this infliction, I was subjected to the company of several old ladies, who, each and every one of them, expressed a wish for one or more bouquets for herself, for which, of course, I paid with rapturous delight. At last a friend consigned to my care his maiden aunt, a lady of some forty summers, who was possessed of a great fancy for the company of a certain gentleman whom she could not find ; and with her I had to career up and down the stairs six or seven different times, m fruitless search for the beloved object, at a total cost of six shillings for every ascent or descent. I bought several useless little articles to please the makers of them ; and at hut came away, sick at heart, disgusted, and out of pocket to the tune of five pound ten.