“OTHER PEOPLE.”

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19663, 24 August 1935, Page 18 (Supplement)

“OTHER PEOPLE.”

A New Zealander Looks At I Englishmen. j I MR BOLITHO ON ENGLISH DOGS, HORSES AND WIVES. In iMr Hector Bolitho’s autobiography, “ Older People,” which has just appeared, probably the brightest passage is reprinted below: — The type of Englishman described as “ huntin’, fls'hin’ and shootin’ ” is not always understood in the new countries. We like the story of the man who, when be was asked by a sturdy rider to hounds: “Do you hunt ” answered: “ Yes, but only when I have lost something.” In New Zealand, animals are useful tc us and we are kind to them, but we do not always sympathise with the odd twist in the Englishman’s devotions . . . . the twist which makes him venerate his horse and bis dog and yet turn, quite cheerfully, to see a fox rent to pieces. Even when one has lived in the country for some years, there Is something comical about the good Englishman who will sit up all night with his spaniel, because it is low with colic and yet grumble when his tired wife asks him to bring her the aspirin from the bathroom. How often, while staying in a country •house, one ihas watched one's host greeting his wife in the morning with a sharp peck and then turn, with unblushing fervour, to fondle his dog, calling it by endearing names while the unhappy wife looks on, the golfing •stocking she is knitting for her lord hanging limply from her hand? Englishmen do seem to place their horses above their wives, in their affections. I-low many statues are there in the streets of London to prove this? Charles the First in Trafalgar Square, George the Third, nearby, Edward the Seventh in front of the Athenaeum and even that great soldier Lord Haig, all immortalised in bronze, but with their horses.. Where is there a statue •of a man sculptured beside his wife? Much as we love him, the Englishman has strange threads in his character which we do not understand. I have been told of an English country gentleman. who married a few years before the beginning of the war. When his first child was born his wife tired of him and went away. He was bored by the baby and he sold it to a noble Austrian who could not produce an heir. The Englishman’s relatives swallowed their bitter pill, but they did not turn the villain away. Not so very long ago, he went out to shoot pheasants from his motor-car. He was fined for poaching, and, in the face cf this offence, his family have refused to have anything more to do with him. Late in 1934, a woman was acquitted at Plymouth Police 'Court although it was stated that she had held a child’s hand near to the fire as punishment for some little misdeed. In August of the same year, an elderly man of Willingdon was sentenced to one month's hard labour for hitting a cat 'On the head with a pole. In the same month, a husband who had struok his wife with a boot was dismissed with a caution.

Near to me in Essex, there lives a man who is one of the most charming hosts I know. No house reveals the beauty of English country life more than his. Sitting at his table, gently illuminated by candles, watching the topaz light dancing upon Charles the Second goblets and upon the forms of three red lacquer chests, in the dim shadows . . . the silent servants and the procession of faultless dishes gives one an experience to be treasured. This conventional, cultivated Englishman has been married three times. Through all these fluctuations cf the heart, he retained one elk 'hound. Wives have come and wives have gone, but the elk bound has remained. Once when 'his second wife swooned with a pain, she was swept off to a nursinghome. But when the elk hound wilted with some sickness, my friend stoutly fought any effort to send it to a veterinary surgeon. “ No, by Heaven, No! The vet. must come her. I am not going to let those blasted dog hospital people touch him.” It is to be admitted that the dog has shown more unquestioning devotion than any one of the wives. Each morning, when the elk hound jumps upon his master’s bed, pawing his face In the way none of the wives would have dared, my friend pats the beast and says: “ Bring me The Times.” Although the Daily Express and the Sketch are delivered at the house, there Is no hesitation on the part of the elk hound. Pie scorns the more popular journals and leaps upstairs, with The 'Times held firm In his jaws. How often we hear our host boasting about the intelligence of his dog. But how annoyed he is if lie lias found intelligence in his wife. We see him walking over (lie fields with his dumb friend chatting away, laughing, throwing sticks for his amusement, opening gates l’or him and allowing him to go first, and then returning to Itis dinner table to sit opposite his wife through an entire meal, without addressing one word to her. Never does lie pause to realise that she also might he trained to discriminate between The Times and the Daily Express.