The Examiner, PUBLISHED MONDAY. WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY. FRIDAY, SEPT. 24, 1915. The Phsychology of Knitting.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 24 September 1915, Page 2

The Examiner, PUBLISHED MONDAY. WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY. FRIDAY, SEPT. 24, 1915. The Phsychology of Knitting.

“ WHEN Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman ? ” was asked by the wise commentator on men and societies, centuries before Tom Payne. He might pertinently have added “ and gentlewoman ” to his couplet if he could have found the feet for it, for latter day events have shown that in his question he has touched if not the secret of class as applies to women, at any rate the fundamental law that governs female democracy. For, study a company of ladies collected for any purpose connected with the fine arts, with amusements, with even religious observances, and note how lacking is the evidence of any freemasonry binding them together. They are gathered into cliques- Incidentally we have never been able to determine why this should not be so —why in the world birds of one feather should not congregate in one corner, those of another plumage in another. But the assortment annoys some folks. To these protesting against such and such airs of superiority we would commend the study of a group of women gathered together for the purpose of knitting or in some way framing the finished article from its elements, for a common purpose. In such an assemblage it will be found that there are only two grades of society, and that these two are possessed of a passion for amalgamation. They are divided, this company of Eye’s daughters, for the nonce, into the class that can spin—f.6’. knit —and the class that cannot. And which is the more anxious to wear the mantle of their first toil worn mother it is difficult to determine. There is only one form of envy • expressed—the envy of the owner of the nimblest fingers. Here as no where on earth equality reigns, and the only sign of even a ripple on the even surface, is to be detected in rare smile that sometimes passes between two experts —the governor’s lady it may be and Mrs Brown from the laundry who are together recognising with secret joyfa Balaclava, perhaps in the wierd proportions of a garment that might as fittingly represent the cover of a stove pipe or a heelless bed sock. Here is true democracy to be found —in these assemblages of ladies—a truth perhaps discovered by the denizens of Paris in ;he birth throes of the revolution. Bestow on the finest of Vere de Veres a set of needles enmeshed n an embryo sock, and if she can knit she will become a mere aomely woman as she approaches the intricacies of the heel. If she has never learned the difference between purl and plain, in 3 minutes her stiffness will have left her and she will be found abject in her helplessness—and in her anxiety to learn. There is something that suggests that occult in the fascination the this homely art establishes over the rotaries of the knitting needle. Of course its power may be explained by the relief afforded to the anxious in employment that may directly benefit the absent. Again there is the restored consciousness, lost to some folks of late years, of the joy of usefulness. And again there is the soothing iniluence on jaded nerves and care-haunted brains of pre-oc-cupation and movement. Whatever its cause this twentieth century knitting craze may have come in time to restore nervous and mental vigour to our modern day women, and so, indirectly, to benefit the nation in other ways than in the equipment of our soldiers. It is quite possible that the coming generation may be much more virile than it would have been if the mothers of the Empire had not spared much of the leisure formerly given to the pictures and to bridge parties, to the cult of the knitting needle and the arts of homely usefulness.