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Star (Christchurch), Issue 16737, 19 May 1922, Page 8

The Canterbury Trades and Labour Council, in tlie Trades Hall to-morrow evening, will make a presentation to Mr J. A. McCullough, in view of hi;3 retirement from the Arbitration Court. As a general rule, the daily audience at the Magistrate’s Court—great or small according to the interest, sordid or otherwse, to be found in tho day’s work—is exclusive as far as the sexes are concerned, (says the Wellington “ Post.”) Women seldom care to spend odd minutes, odd hours, odd days, listening to tales of misfortune and misery in which they have no direct interest. While the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court are in progress, however, the keenest of all the listeners are half-a-dozen regulars in the women’B gallery. Their attendance is constant, they take the same places so regularly that the intrusion of a stranger by wav of the occupation of one of the semi-reserved seats would probably be met with warm resentment by the rightful (?) occupier of the seat. Quite a few of the women, knit, and seemingly prefer to miss stitches to points. The keener tho interest, the sharper the curiosity, the faster the needles go, and it may be that there is some strange psychological connection between needle-play and the concentration of women’s minds upon the business of others. An any rate, nono of the men knit.