HAMILTION STATION

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17654, 7 March 1929, Page 6

HAMILTION STATION

jN THE DRIFT OF LIFE 'By “ Seeker.”) PARCELS, PIGS AND PATCHES. ■ “I met Nansen to-day, said Dad. “We had a bit of a snack together. When Dad indulges in a five-course dinner in town, it's always “a bit ol a snack.” „ “Ouite an age since we saw them, said'Aunt Selina. "And how’s your little darling Peggy, William. “Pegirv’s no longer little, my dear. She’s a grown-up lady. , Poor old Nansen, lie’s in quite a stew He wants Peggy to be one of the elite and so lie sends her to an elite school. < And now lie finds she won’t carry home a brown-paper parcel of sugar and tea. They’ve taught her it s not ladylike to carry anything but a purse and a poodle-dog. He s had to give in to that, and then he finds poor Peggy crying her heart out because some of the girls look down on her because she’s a shopkeeper s daughiei. Heavens! What is the world coming to Give me another cup of tea, will you, Selina? I don’t seem to have much appetite to-night.” ‘‘No appetite, dear —after only a snack for lunch?” 'queried Aunt Selina, slily. “But after ail, the world’s not much worse than it used to be. You remember how the dame s schools used to teach the girls to say prunes and prisms’ to make their lips voluptuous, and used to forbid them to know anyone beneath their rank. And the great object in life for girls was to catch a man with a thousand a year that he had done nothing to earn—if they couldn't catch one with twenty thousand and a title. And it isn t only the girls. I was talking to Mrs Rranigan to-day, and she was saying that,, now young Rill is going to High School, be won’t help the old man to bring home the pig-feed—-not even on Saturdays, as he used to. And Mr Rranigan says Saturday's the only time he gets for odd jobs, and they have a big row every week, and she stands up for Hill—says she won't have the other boys making fun of him pnd calling him ‘Piggy.’ And poor old Rranigan has to work harder thanj ever. And Mrs R. won’t leave liiml any beer money these days—takes it j to 'pay for Rill’s books. And witlii the .new baby coming—Lord, what; will they do?” “Poor old Rranigan! I’ve a good mind to send him a few bottles of beer,” said Dad. “Still 1 suppose it is hard for the young people not to do in Rome as the Romans do. I remember at high school once I had a patch on my-—you know where. Now when I'd been at the public school I d always thought I'd like to have ragged or patchy pants; all the young hard cases bad. Rut it was never my luck. Rut high school in those days was a college—a place for the higher-ups and the scholarship boys—• and somehow I had to wear the pants with a patch. And I remember one morning 1 had to go up on the platform before the whole school. I tried to walk sideways without letting on that I was hiding something behind.! That patch seemed to me as big as a, cathedral window and as conspicuous as the big flare light at Frankton station. 1 reckoned everyone in the school had his eye on that patch. L was in a cold sweat lilt I could turn round and face the crowd, and ” j Aunt Selina laughed sympathetically. “You poor thing 1 Gwen would say it was very bad for you—would give you an inferiority complex. Perhaps that's why you're so careless about your clothes to-day. Really, William, that soil, isn't fit. to wear.” “inferiority complex lie hanged! We had to do it in those days, and it look a hit of Hie bumptiousness out of us, and a good thing too. Yes, please, just half a cup.” » * W * THE DIFFICULTY OF BEING WICKED “Men are always thinking that they are going to do something grandly .wicked their enemies; but when it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones,” says Bernard Shaw. Still most of us can remember things not at all grand that we wish we hadn't done. At the least the “Seeker" can, and without going very far back. BECOMING CIVILISED. Rumour has it that an eminent barrister of Jewish extraction, Mr M. Myers, K.C., is to follow a Catholic in the high office of Chief Justice of mainly Protestant New Zealand. We have a Catholic Prime Minister, too. And there is no Ku Klux Klan to protest. Seems we are gradually becoming civilised. Rut Catholic school children are still excluded from our State dental clinics, without any reason. So our civilised tolerance is nothing to boast of yet. Against such unfair discrimination the “Seeker” will always bo a prolestant. o * » ' UNDER THE INFLUENCE. A Christchurch paper reports “a fair number of cases of simple influence” in that city. The "influence” of alcoholic liquor is apparently not wha t is meant, for I lie paper says Ihe demand for remedies for Ihe disease is about us usual. People “under the influence” will sloully deny that it is a disease, or if it, is, it is so pleasant that they prefer more of it rather than a cure—though they may have their doubts the morning afterMaybe “influence” was a misprint for “inllucnza.” An enterprising paper would naturally want to make a story of any increase In influenza when there is such an epidemic in other parts of Ihe world. The story falls rather flat. It reminds the “Seeker” of an incident in America. The city editor (whom we would call "chief reporter") was a laconic man; “Oh, Jonesey,” be said, “go and get a story about the smallpox.” Jones went obediently, found there was no smallpox, nor even a scare of an outbreak. Rut he wrote a column or two about how smallpox might come and what should he done in sucli an alarming event. He handed in the “story,” and the city editor said: “Hello! What's this? I asked you to gel a story about the small parks.” In good American the words “small parks” and "smallpox” sound very similar. Thank heaven, our New Zealand reporters have not been sufficiently enterprising lo work up an inllucnza scare. SHEER WASTE. “We should think a country insano if in time of great, difficulty it sank 100,000,000 golden sovereigns in the sea. Solely from an economic point of view, it is hardly loss harmful to sink those millions into the sea than lo spend them on armaments." —Viscount Cecil of Chclwooci,