By "Jack point"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20108, 29 March 1928, Page 5

By "Jack point"

A writer asks whether romantic critics can really be accepted by thc public as guiding stars. They may certainly claim to be first-nightlights.

Moving pavements arc thc latest thing, I read. If they arc ever adopted here, it will be great fun to stand at the Post Office and whiz past the traffic in the Avenue.

A modern philosopher suggests that why girls leave their homes is because they become lonesome in thc absence of their parents.

A millionaire allows his chauffeur a hundred pounds a week to pay for small accidents. This, I suppose, is known as the petty crash account. A meteor crashing through the roof of a house and narrowly missing thc occupant, a composer of dance music, by several feet, is announced in a contemporary. Still, no one would deny that it was a good shot.

"Baronetcy a Surprise” reads a headline. Often to some hopeful watchers of the Honours List it is more than a surprise.

It is said that thc handle of a new umbrella is shaped like a dog’s head, and, when squeezed, emits a bark. But what if one attempted to put up one’s Alsation in mistake when it came on to rain.

The three main streets in one of our leading cities, states a newspaper, are to be widened. Club members living in the neighbourhood are complaining that it will make a much longer walk home at nighL

A correspondent who is looking forward to a world "fitted, to live in” must have been looking over thc flat that "Jack Point” lives in.

Thc new two-piece cloak, with heavy weight trimming, championship belt waistline of least resistance is making a bold bid for popularity. Some of the current models are not only becoming, but are becoming very much more so. especially as the collars may be kept open day and night—Sundays and holidays included.

A council’s rate arrears collector has retired. His successor, it is said, is already familiarising himself with the backs of regular clients. Recently, at the wedding of a labourer, his colleagues escorted him with an arch of pickaxes. Fortunately for him he escaped before the dinner-whistle went.

A Government official who retired recently was presented with an armchair by the rest of the staff. Seems like rubbing it in.

A gift of a thousand volumes of humour has been made to one of our universities- Some people will say that is a funny thing to be put into a university library.

South Island potatoes are rumoured to be raising a fund to be used to focus the eyes of New Zealand on their product. As if there were not enough of them as it is.

..The combers of the sea are continually at work on the permanent waves.

It has been told to "Jack Point” that the next time number plates arc to be changed a fish will be depicted on the Wellington number-plates while Wanganui motorists are to have a potato embossed on theirs. Now all "Jack Point” is wondering about is, when will the twi© get t Aether for a mess of ‘‘fish and chips?”

By rebinding drab and grey covered books in light colours, a library, not a thousand miles from Wanganui, has caused books long untouched and unread to become popular. Another bright idea.

lu balancing up the books for 1927 one should not overlook placing credit where credit is due.

It is known in the trade that new colour schemes which are soon to transform our kitchens, are also to be applied to implements of thc culinary art. Fancy kettles of old gold and pots of nile green with tan interiors are soon to be the style. What will the pot call the kettle?

"JACK POINT'S” WEEKLY WHISPEBISM. 1 hear a great deal about short •skirts, but thc one thing I am never told is this: How is the shortness of skirts calculated ’ Is it calculated between the waist and the hem of thc skirt, or between the hem of the skirt ami the ground In my opinion all that matters to the modern girl is that the seam of her skirt should be so many feet, yards, furlongs, or whatever it is from the base terrestrial mud or clay. That is the sign of her emancipation. Woman draped tc the feet once stood, like a goddess, on a single high | pedestal of marble or stone. Now she likes to stand on the high pedestals covered with artificial silk or wool. If, then, the Paris dressmakers, whom I suppose to be responsible for thc edicts of fashion insist on putting skirts two inches below the knee, there will be only one course open to the modern girl, and she will take it. She will grow longer calves. It is wellknown that girls can grow longer or shorter in the neck or waste or leg exactly when they please, like Alice in Wonderland when she nibbled at the mushroom. Will it be quite fair for mon if all girls become, as they will become, two or three inches taller than they arc now? Quite a number of them, if increased in this manner by a couple of inches will become at least two yards in length. Even now short men find a difficulty in reaching up to thc necks of girls when they put fur coats round them. I am certain that the point I have raised is an important one. It is one thing that man should bow humbly at woman’s feet. It is quite another 'thing that, when upright, ho should not stand higher than her knees.