CULLED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18443, 29 March 1922, Page 8

CULLED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

Old-fashioned Lady Bountifuls are not all dead yet, much t<> the grief of some modern social workers. Last Christmas day an 0.F.L.8. called a big charity organisation on the ’phone. The following, somewhat one-sided conversation ensued: “This is Mrs Fitz Boodle. Can you give me the name of some very poor family? They really must be very worthy, you know. You see, I have a beautiful Christmas tree in my apartment, with the darlingest decorations. I have had it for three days now. I decorated it for my little Kiki, and I really think he has got all the good of it that ho can. So now I want to share it with some of the worthy poor.”

Why do horses and dogs appeal especially to the affections of the human race? Some enthusiasts have even given a New Year’s party to worn-out horses at Cricklewood. It is hardly possible to imagine a feast of swedes and mangolds being given to cows or pigs. It is unlikely, even, that any collection of stray cats were ever treated to a New Year’s supper of milk and fish. Men like horses and dogs, says the “Daily Express,” because of all animals they best reflect the idiosyncrasies of their masters. They flatter our vanity. They let us feel their dependence on us. Not so the cat, an independent, never quite domesticated, creature. Hence the libels —

| strangly contradictory!—about the . cat being treacherous or the particular pet of old maids. Both are ludicrously untrue. Many men, especially intelligent men, love cats. Nor will a cat, when once its affection is given, show less constancy than any other animal; but the affection is given on its own terms, not on ours. We do not like this. The cat is a standing challenge to the superior pretensions of humanity.

A scheme of profit sharing by the workers in the well-known toffee making firm of J. Mackintosh and Sons, Ltd.. Halifax, is to come into operaton this year. The whole cost will be borne by the company. Profit sharing will be arranged by means of a weekly bonus Eased on the rate of pay. After six months’ service all male employees will be insured for not less than £lOO against death from whatever cause. After ten years’ service the amount gradually increases up to £2OO at 20 years. Maternity benefits are also introduced for the wives of employees and for married woman employees. It is also announced that in memory of Mr John Mackintosh, the founder of the firm, cottage homes will be built. These will be available for any needy cases in Halifax, but old workers of the fir’ll will have special consideration. During rhe early days of the Russian Revolution, a contributor to the “Atlantic says, robberies were frequent in the streets of Petrograd.

“One lady whom I knew,” “was coming homo one evening wearing a long coat of black Persian lamb. Two men stopped her and* -yL * asked her if she wished to buy a J 'fur coat. She replied that she did not require to, as she had the one she was wearing. “Why,” they said, “that is the very one we mean”; and as she did not have the money* to redeem it, they took it from her.”