SENSE AND NONSENSE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20168, 9 June 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

SENSE AND NONSENSE

RANDOM REFLECTIONS OF A LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER

(By

ROBERT MAGILL)

The usual impression of a mother-in-law, as guineruu Irom music-hall comeuians is all wrong. Hhe is pictured as being so fierce that you ought to take out a license for her, anti sue nates her son-in-law because she minks lie isn’t good enough for her uaugnter. But having been saddled with the wretch, so to speak, she rioes her best to reduce him to the harmless condition of her own husband.

Somehow, my own mother-in-law isn’t a bit like that. When she comes to sec me, she drives up in a yellow motor-car that would sting you if you let it settle on you. It is loaded' like a furniture van, with golf clubs, tennis racquets, and new gramophone records, and mother-in-law is shingled, short-skirted and silk-stockinged so that she looks about twenty-live.

The first thing she tells me is how a good-looking young policeman with blue eyes tried; to lock her up for going too fast, and then she wants to show me a new step in the Yale Blues, bhe leaves cigarette ends all over the place and 1 get blamed for it.

One thing is the same. She still thinks 1 am not good enough for her httie ewe-lamb, because 1 won't give up a day’s work and go and play tennis with her. She considers 1 am an old stick-in-the-mud, but the fact is that we young married people have too much responsibility, and we shan’t be able to grow young again till our family is grown up and off our hands.

At the same time, 1 don’t believe mother-in-law was ever so bad as she is painted, although in the old days she didn’t paint at all. Stic always came round and looked after things when her daughter asked her to, and she never minded taking care of the baby while its parents went to the pictures for once. And somebody .had to rake in the old sock to find a few pounds when times wore hard.

True, she was a little critical of men, but what can one expect seeing the number of years she has had to put up with father-in-law. * «= «= *

One of the most absorbing topics we can discuss is money. Money, in case you don’t see enough of it to become familiar with it, is the stuff you buy things with; and we are to have it issued with fresh and more beautiful designs on it, the idea being that we will like it so much that we will save it and thus become a thrifty nation.

Of course, money isn’t everything; but we should find it very difficult to get along without it. For instance, if you worked in a clothing factory, the only thing they could pay you with would be some of the stuff you had been making, and if you’d had a short week, your wages might be one leg of a pair of trousers. Certainly you might be able to go to a butcher and change this for some meat —if he happened to be a one-legged butcher, and in want of it. And what of the dentist? Would the furniture dealer say to him: “Of course, I shall be glad to let you extract one tooth now, and one every month for forty months in exchange for that piano”? We should see advertisements like this: “Desirable villa res.. 4 bed, 3 rec., etc. Rent six wolf-hounds per annum. ’’ “For sale, bicycle, 1927. Price 500 small coffees.” “Wanted, daily girl. Wages. 75 dance records yearly.” ; But I pity the book-makers at the I greyhound tracks, trying to work out the odds at two to one on in the case of a man who got paid in beef-steak puddings. And how’ would one get on at a charity bazaar? There was a Grande Olde Fancye Fayre and Fete at our Town Hall recently in ad of the Waifs and Strays. They spelt it like that to annoy the compositor. My small daughter was danc.ii.ig there, so we naturally went, puffed up with pride. We discovvreeV that about five hundred children were taking part, the idea being that as most of their parents would pay to come in, the affair was boun.l to be a financial sucEarly in the proceedings my wite abandoned me to the wolves while she went to dress the child-, so I was left in the midst of several rapacious women who were looking after the stalls-

Although I had my best clothes on. I felt like a mongrel dog in a cat show. Hungry eyes followed me all over the place and I kept, on walking, like Felix. I knew that if I stood still somebody would fancy 1 was looking at some article and make me buy it in aid of the waifs and strays. I did stop at one stall run by a. couple of charming waifs who seemedto have strayed in from the Hippodrome chorus, and 1 paid them five shillings for a bookmark. But just then a large lady in a big fur positively dragged me away and held me still while she sold me things by force. My wife’s remarks on my extravn-

gance might have borne some weight, only the white elephant stall was being run by a man with a profile like Ba mon Navarro in “Ben Hur.” bho couldn’t resist buying from him. Luckily we livcii quite near, because we na».. to walk home. Pots and Kettles.

Although motorists disagree as bitterly as those little birds in their nests who quarrel over whose turn it is for the next worm, on one point they all agree, that is, that no other driver can .urive as well as they can. 1 went for a ride the other day In the car belonging to the man next door, sitting in the front scat beside him. When I got back, my pulse was doing 3,5000 ievolutions to the minute. Two of my front hairs had gone quite white. 1 am only thankful that my insurance company didn’t sec mo or they would have given inc back

Ji wasn’t that he went too fast, excepting at cross-roads, round blind corners, ani > when he saw a pedestrian crossing the road. On the few occasions when he had a clear run he refused to go more than twenty-five miles an hour, alleging that he was a careful driver. But lie charged up close to cars in front of him, relying too much on his brakes. He allowed insufficient room for other cars to pass him. He went round corners on. two wheels, and shot me out of my seat

Then he had the neck to ask me if 1 was nervous when i got homo, because 1 wanted a glass of Drunuy.

A Jay or so later 1 took .him out for a ride, just to give him a few tips on careful driving, and I never sat beside such a pusillanimous blob in my life. Every time we saw something half a mile in front of us, be stamped iiis right foot, trying to put on an imaginary brake. Once he grabbed the fountain pen in my waist coat pocket, and tried to change gear with it. ami after ten minutes 1 .had to turn, my collar up. because he was in such a cold perspiration. If anything appeared in a crossroadl we had passed, he yelled, “Oh, do be careful. There’s a car!” as

though I hadn‘t seen it, or as though 1 should have cared if I hadn't. If 1 passed a car in front of me, he gasped. A chicken crossed the road. Ho gibbered. Another car came towards us. He began to pray out loud. And every time we went round a corner he deliberately fell on top of me, or else against the side o’ the car. When we got back he had a double brandy, and said I was the most reckless driver he had ever known, and he was never coming out. with me again, although there wouldn’t be much chance of that because. I should undoubtedly break my neck before very long. In future 1 shall take out old ladies. Or I don’t mind young ones, so long as they can’t drive. It seems tn be too unnerving to have to sit still and lot somebody else do it. Rank Rascality.

1 suppose these modern dramatist! know wliat they arc talking about, but their ideas of our aristocracy seems to be different from mine. 1 don’t expect a duke to sleep in his coronet exactly, but the chief occupation of most of the dukes on the stage see ma to be to make love to somebody else’s wife. The duchess doesn't mind, bo* cause she is making love to her but-

You would think that this sort of thing would shock the other characters, but no. The marchioness can’t aspire to a butler, so she amuses herseif with her chauffeur. She must do something, poor thing, because hei husband- is usually a dipsomaniac. Generally speaking, the higher th< rank, the ranker the conduct.

Precedence amongst the lallies runs the same way. They all carry on liaisons with other people, but a baroness mustn’t approach anybody bettor than a lounge lizard. A countess cafi take cocaine, whereas a viscountess can only indulge in shoplifting. Noblesse oblige, on the stage, stands for “mind your pockets.’’ T have found my book on the subject of addressing people of rank, but nobody on the stage* ever says “My Lord Duke,” and ends by having the honour to bo. my I.ord Duke, yon! Grace’s most devoted and most obedient servant, good lord. No. The usual address is. “Bill, old man,” and nobody has any honour on the stage, except when making a false claim to the ten nt bridge. Frankly. 1 don’t believe it. T know one earl. Ho is the dullest and most deadly respectable man I have ever met. They would throw hymn-books at him in a Welsh chapel. He gives prizes away at Sunday-school gatherings. an ( d spends the rest of his time trying to cure his chilblains. While if you mentioned the won-? cocktail to him it would only remind him of his boastlv chickens.