THROUGH ADVERTISEMENTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19784, 7 March 1927, Page 8

THROUGH ADVERTISEMENTS

PEEPS AT LIFE PRESS FULL OF DAILY MYSTERIES An historic advertisement appeared some years ago in the matrimonial column of a Melbourne daily paper to the effect that an ardent swain was desirous of meeting a “woman of large build—knowledge of Geelong essential." The addition of the magic words, “View above," proved that the intentions of the advertiser were strictly honourable; but what they were beyond this, or in what conceivable way a largo build and a knowledge of Geelong could be a qualification for matrimony, have forever remained a mystery. In London, perhaps more than in any other city in the world, the daily Press is filled with mysteries such as these—paragraphs and advertisements, police court reports, little disconnected news items that can apparently have no conceivable explanation whatever. There are others—such as “Wanted: Respectable ■woman to sing to night-worker in bed during daytime"—that conjure up scenes so naive that one can scarcely believe that they belong to real life at all. And even the inevitable “Cheery gent, willing to complete Christmas party"—what manner of man is he? One can never know these things, any more than one can know whether the gallant of five years ago is to-day living happily at Geelong with his woman of large build. It is only recently that, the London papers have taken to noticing minor police court, cases which have no importance in themselves, but which throw a momentary spotlight on the lives of the submerged and the unknown. The man who at. three o’clock in the morning, met a “down-and-out’ on Westminster Bridge and offered him 2s to jump into the river there and then “as an experiment" has ney disclosed his identity; but his victim, after obtaining payment in advance, fulfilled his part of the contract and was fined 2s 6d on the morning after he had pulled his bedraggled and halffrozen body ashore. To finish such a desperate hazard by being sixpence on the wrong side of the ledger,, is irony indeed. The reveller who, attired in a pith helmet, a cardboard nose and a pair of long side-whiskers, ejected the police officer on point duty at Marble Arch and for several minutes took over control of the traffic is a much more understandable individual; one feels that he deserved to be presented with the £5 which the exploit ultimately cost him. In cases such as these one has glimpses of mentalities not quite in the usual run, but in these snappy “Shorts from the Courts," which so many papers publish now, there are disclosed not so much personalities as whole lives. When a dreary little stubblywhiskered man declared that ‘‘My old woman has thrashed me every evening for years’’ it may or may not be extraordinarily amusing; or when a man says that his wife has been “Much easier to live with since she bit her tongue off in a bus accident,’’ it may be a good joke, too. On the other hand, apart, from the fact that we have become accustomed to laugh at this sort of thing in the music halls since time immemorial, it is difficult to see how they are amusing at all. Yet again, the woman who acidly retorted to her husband’s remark that, she had a face like a coal-scuttle, “That’s why you are always trying to shove the poker into it, I suppose." showed a flicker of humour that at least to some extent overcame the sordidness of her story. One had an underlying feeling that these two, after all, might be the best of friends sometimes. But it is the so-called “Agony’’ columns that there are tho insoluble mysteries. “I am fed-up. If anyone will give me £20.000 I will devote the whole of the rest of my life entirely towards doing anything whatever that the donor may ask of me. I am young, healthy, and an Oxford graduate. What offers?” If an advertisement like this be genuine, as it probably is, there must surely be a story behind it stranger than* fiction. “I want a set of false teeth; terms must be moderate," is plain sailing enough; but who, in the name of heaven, are the anonymous well-wishers to humanity who so persistently (and at considerable expense) insert such greetings as “Cheerio, everybody! " on the front page of “The Times?" One would think that the satisfaction of seeing oneself in print could scarcely bo carried to greater lengths. Yet there is something pleasant. in the also anonymous insertion last Derby Day: “Hullo, everybody! Somo of you may back winners to-day."