BRIDGE AND CIGARETTES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13334, 24 March 1911, Page 4

BRIDGE AND CIGARETTES.

A well-known Auckland lady, who is concerned in many good works, and on many committees, and who occupies an unassailable position in society, indignantly denies the allegations of Mr H. G. Ell, M.P., concerning bridge-playing and the smoking of cigarettes by society women in Now Zealand. She admits that bridge is played—she plays a good deal herself — most evenings and some afternoons 'at some house or another, and confesses that they play for money, though she says the stakes arc so small as to be an entirely negligible quantity. The lady has never known a case of anyone losing an “uncomfortable” amount, and so far as Auckland is concerned—and she claims to speak with assurance—there has never been “the breath of scandal over any debt at cards or of girls playing beyond their means.” There is not a house in Auckland, she says, where such a thing would be tolerated, as good sense prevails. Tenpcnce a hundred is the average stake, often loss. The lady, who vouchsafed this information to an Auckland Star reporter, went on to say: Mr Ell, though speaking in Christchurch, said his informant was not a Christchurch woman. He was afraid evidently of the women of Christchurch. Her name I take it is “Harris.” She is a most extraordinary female; quite like Mrs Gamp’s friend, in fact, in the matter of strange acquaintances. Why does it hurt her to go into a house where bridge is being played? Surely she doesn’t imagine anyone would ask her to play? It exactly shows Mr Ell’s ignorance of what, ho is talking about. Bridge players do not encourage beginners or ask casual callers to take a hand. Moreover, it would be a

strange household where any such “catty" caller as this ever got beyond the front'#' door when a game was in progress. Bridge J is played quite a lot, but entirely innocently. It has taken the place of tittletattle and scandal-mongcring which a decade ago occupied so many afternoons. As for smoking, the thing is too absurd. A few—very lew—women here smoke—none to excess. As for blackening their teeth, well !’’ the lady went off into a peal of laughter, (perhaps designedly) showing the whitest, brightest set possible. "Mr Ell,’’ she said, “was talking the sort of nonsense that class of person always does, lint it’s about time the lie about ug women gambling at bridge was squashed: so make that clear. Good-bye."