Breezes from the Capital

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2 November 1925, Page 10

Breezes from the Capital

‘Reflections by the ‘Way

Oh, dear, zvhat can the matter be? Oh, dear, what can the matter be? Oh, dear, what can the matter be? Johnny’s so long at his beer. ' B 'HAT, ladies and gentlemen, is, with a few minor variations, what full fifty per cent, of the hardworking housewives of this vast metropolis are saying to themselves, to the next-door neighbour, and, in fact, to the entire community, when, at the hour of curfew, they hover anxiously around oven doors, convinced that if they august lords and masters don’t take it into their heads to return home immediately the de-licately-browned dinner chops will take on the complexion of a sunburned son of Ethiopia. And what, you may quite possibly ask, is the reason for this cold indifference on the parts of our horny-handed sons of toil to the insistent demands of their inner men? Simply this: a man may, unless his true and lawful spouse is one of those large ladies who attend physical culture classes, ask for and receive well-browned chops, not to mention sizzling onions, at practically any stage of his career. Time was when he felt himself free, especially just after pay day, to spend the hour betwixt the dark and the daylight in some sequestered —one, let us say, with a sanded floor and a convenient brass railing in lieu of a footstool —-where he might either chat more or less quietly with his bosom friends, or sit wrapped in maiden meditation, drinking in the beauty of the scene and——other things. But the wow —beg pardon, we mean the sober, righteous and godly elements of this communityare, according to their own sworn statements, going to change all that. Already our decorous and peace-loving old town, which once, in better days, somewhat plumed itself upon its artistic eye, is plastered all over with enormous blue and white placards, proving, if not to the simple-minded working man, at least to the satisfaction of the afore-mentioned sober and righteous, that this country is going in a very short space of time to become a close imitation of the great Sahara Desert, and that we, in consequence, will have to change our title to “Simmoons From the Capital.” (N.B. A simmoon may be defined as a hot, dry wind blowing from a desert.) However, every desert has its oases, and, even if the worst comes to pass, we daresay that we’ll be able to sustain ourselves with lemonade and the consolations of Holy Writ. But it is a well-known fact that among certain less philosophic sections of the community the slogan “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we’re dry,” has been adopted. This, then, is the reason why the allurements of the erstwhile infallible grilled steak and onions are. so to speak, handed the frozen mitt. F) UT let’s leave all these sad and solemn speculations to the consideration of the Merely Masculine, who, like our old friend Mrs. Gummidge, arc. never happy unless they’re miserable. Even the almost irrepressible frivolity of the soi-disant fair sex has of late undergone a temporary eclipse. How can it be other-

wise when we can’t walk down the street, look inside a letter-box, or, indeed, so much as show the extreme tips of our noses outside our front doors without being assailed by interesting little election-time pamphlets advising us that if we don’t cast

our vote in one direction we’ll all be murdered in our beds by wild Bolsheviks, or, as an alternative suggestion, that if we continue to support our present Government, we will probably end by supporting seventeen starving children on a maximum wage of sixpence ha’penny per diem? We ourselves are ignorant enough to believe that every Government is very much like every other Government, only perhaps a little more so, and that Wellington will still be the same old Wellington no matter who happens temporarily to occupy the seats of the mighty. The pleasantest day in Parliament is, in our humble opinion, the very last day of the session, when members forget that they are confined in neat little water-tight and air-tight compartments labelled “Reformer,”

“Nationalist,” or “Labour-Socialist” and come together to wish each other bonne voyage, and not too much mal de mer while sailing the stormy seas of election. Now that our eighty legislators are headed full steam ahead for the hustings,

Wellington has become a strangely disorganized—almost a demoralized ■ —old town. Pamphlets, as we have already hinted, fly about in coveys, and without any provocation whatsoever invade the most peaceable domestic dove-cots. Stately edifices ■—buildings which seem never to forget that they are historic piles, and that their first duty is to look the partbreak out in what appears to be a kind of political scarlet fever, and flourish large red-lettered placards cordially inviting the startled beholder to “Vote for Labour.” This is in itself a little unnerving. However, I suppose that once Election Day has come and gone Wellington will once more mount upon its pedestal of calm, cold, unapproachable dignity, and will remain seccotined thereto for another three years.

I) Y the way, have you noticed the narroW margin between the date of the elections and that generally held sacred to our old friend Guy Fawkes? Personally, I think that the Government have missed an unrivalled opportunity of combining the two occasions into one never-to-be-forgotten festival. Think of the chance one would have of burning a candidate one didn’t personally admire in effigy. Think of the small boys who, with life-like representations of our Ministry enthroned in wheel-barrows, would march from door to door declaiming Guy Fazvkes Guy! Stick ’im up on high, Stick him on a lamp-post And there let him die! Think, too, of the salubrious effect of a life-sized, stuffed M.P., with a string of double-bangers affixed to his august coat tails! However, what’s done can’t be undone. Men in general, and M.P.’s in particular, have absolutely no imagination. TURNING from matters politic to things frivolously feminine, we want to ask you a very serious question. It has no relation whatsoever to your views on Pussyfoot Johnston, nor yet to your opinions of the present Government’s land policy. It is simply this: Have you, or have you not, ever seen an Oxford trouser? Down here in Wellington, in our so-truthful daily newspapers, we have read so many bulletins containing reports of the threatened invasion of the Oxford “bags” that we are absolutely on tiptoe with expectation. Every time our husbands, poor, dear, innocent souls, attempt to smuggle some large, mysterious, bulgy-looking parcel into the soi-disant sanctuary of their own rooms, we hold our breath, expecting, next morning, to see a figure arrayed in nice, bright, cheerful Oxford bags—-shrimp-pink ones, with pale purple stripes—slink furtively down the back stairs and out into the comparative privacy of the great city. But, alas, we have been disappointed so often that we are beginning to look upon Oxford trousers as just another beautiful myth, like muttonchop whiskers, maiden modesty and the age of chivalry. Men are so inconsiderate. They can quite clearly see the good points of being surrounded by typists and stenographers in demurebut not too demure —little frocks which bear the hallmark of London or Paris firmly imprinted on their flimsy surfaces. In the sanctity of their own homes, they consider that they have a perfect right to grumble and complain if their wives fail to appear in exactly the right style of artistic but inexpensive tea-gown. Variety is the spice of their lives; that is why the average man’s existence resembles in composition and flavour an Indian curry of the type favoured by apoplectic colonels. But when, may we ask, has one of the Lords of Crea-

tion paused to consider the monotony of the existence of the average woman, who, year in and year out (and it seems longer) sits opposite the same dingy Stetson hat, the same colourless but correct bow tie, the same striped or spotted waistcoat, and exactly the same snuff-coloured suit? Or, anyhow, if she doesn’t, she’s supposed to. Think what a splash of colour Oxford trousers such as we have described above would make in the grey desert of the married woman’s days. In time, she might even come to like sewing on her husband’s buttons. Women, as everybody knows, have such an insensate passion for matching things, from silks to young and innocent acquaintances, and we are quite sure that the average woman would positively enjoy haunting bargain counters in a vain endeavour to find canary-coloured buttons to go with dear Archibald’s lavender bags.. However, there the situation is, and there, to our sorrow, it seems likely to remain. The main ambition of every man is to look so precisely similar to every other man that his own wife, not to mention his own mother, might, from a casual inspection, quite easily mistake him for the man who lives next door. Indeed, she quite frequently does. But can it be possible that all really exciting fashions, such as the crossword puzzle jacket, the gin-sling and the Mexican tango, find Auckland such a congenial habitation that they positively refuse to descend further south? If this be so, we will confirm a halfformed resolve to spend our very next holidays in Auckland. Summer is icuinen in, Loud sing cuckoo!” VT7E wonder if the gentle old * » rhymster who thus commenced a delightful ballad was, when he referred to the loud singing of the cuckoo, thinking of the loud but far from melodious—one might almost say dirge-likerefrain of the longsuffering husbands called upon to pay for the oh-so-simple little lavender frock across the way? Sum-mer-time is, par excellence, the season of “ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces,” and those who have, at some stage of their careers, showed a marked preference for afore-men-tioned sweet pretty faces by marrying one, or, at a later date, more

than one of them, must be prepared to pay for their indiscretions. Of course, it’s rather ungrateful of us to refer to the poor dears as that those recently fitted out with “cuckoos”though we are quite sure new and expensive wives will agree upon the justice of the imputation. But really, even the Spartan sisterhood who set out, market basket on arm, with the fixed intention of expending their just and lawful monthly dues upon red flannel for Johnny’s undergarments and darning wool for Tommy’s socks, are liable, unless they set their teeth very hard, to fall by the way. The other day, for example, we, full of the good intentions that pave the path to bankruptcy, set out to buy a cheap little frock which would do for the inevitable afternoons at home. Then, halfway down Lambton Quay, the Great White Way of Wellington, we encountered The Frock. It was a confection of cyclamen pink ninon —the kind of frock that simply evaporates if you speak to it unkindly and, as far as the human eye could see, it was composed mainly of three frills and a few furbelows thrown in for good measure. And over it was perched a shady little hat which might have been worn by a dairymaid or by Marie Antoinette masquerading as a dairymaid. So there we were, weren’t we? Sometimes we wonder if men don’t wish that Adam, their august progenitor, had had the sense to “stay put” in the Garden of Eden whilst he had the chance. There were, if you will take the trouble to think back, no dressmakers’ bills in the Garden of Eden.