South of the Straits

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 5, Issue 3, 1 September 1926, Page 3

South of the Straits

Alas for the spring poet! He was was sharpening his pencil, sorting his papers, and sneezing over the fire when spring sneaked in in advance of her scheduled date, and took him unawares. Not as a clinging maiden, in wispy willow green, hut on the grey, dust-laden wings of a Canterbury nor’-wester she came. Already Christchurch is discarding its winter uniform of greatcoat and furs, the primroses are upturning pale, surprised faces; the birdies, with little rehearsal to their credit, arc piping a premature lovesong. With the spring, the Grand National is upon us, and the thoughts of the young man turn, not to romance, hut to dividends. Tt was Oliver Cromwell, was it not. of whom a young historian wrote: "He had a large, red nose under which lay a truly religious spirit.” In the face of a blizzard, and under a frozen exterior, the crowd on the racecourse at Riccarton this week doubtless hid an ardent carnival spirit. Not that it was apparent! Race frocks, dampened with tears, and pressed with frustrated hopes, remained at home, like sartorial Cindercllas, while their step-sisters, in the guise of winter-worn wraps, departed in style and fur collars to add their quota to the sport of kings. There is never a drought in the South, for Grand National week, like Elijah, calls forth the little cloud, at first no bigger than a man's hand. Sport here is not confined to the fisherman and the hunter. The really ardent motorist has always the rosy hope of bagging a pedestrian or two. On good days he can add another notch to his stick by hooking on his front wheel one of those troublesome minnows the cyclists. Alas! that these merry pastimes are to he curtailed. Clad in a chic little uniform of beige of distinctive cut, finished with facings of chimneysweep black, and worn with a cloche hat to tone, the traffic cop has sprung into prominence. The sport is now his; he makes the bag. I am the unloved traffic cop: I signal CO ami I signal STOP. . I steady rock in a crazy sea, I save their lives- —and they all cuss me! r S Mic pen is mightier than the -*• sword —or so we arc told in peace days, when big cannon are relegated to the river banksbut the traffic cop, with arresting hand, is Jove on a street corner. Last week’s sporting total included one of our leading editors, an artist of note, and several society ladies, including an embryo Portia, who conducted her own case with such case and grace that the presiding Justice suggested a legal career as a fitting outlet for her eloquence. The party had been guests at a dance, and in this town south of the strait we may not leave our cars in the city streets unattended for more than five minutes. Short and snappy indeed would be the gathering that ran its course in three hundred seconds! The artist in words, the artist in colours, and Portia and her attendant ladies, ignoring the ukase of the traffic authorities, refused to tramp over muddy pavc-

incuts to a convenient parkingplace, say three blocks away. Anyway satin slippers are not picked up for a penny, and a lawyer’s fees arc only six and cightpcnce a sitting ! The magistrate had evidently kindly memories from his youthful days of country schoolroom dances,

where the horses were tied along the fence, the babies of the district parked under the forms, and the whole country-side jigged cheerfully to the strains of a concertina. One law alike for town and country was bis ruling not a sou added to the funds of the treasury!

trange, in the hurdy-gurdy of time, how many cherished prejudices wither like all flesh, which, as we arc taught, is as grass. In by-gone days, how many otherwise undauntahle British matrons with eligible sons at their apron-strings, have turned pale at the mere mention of the chorus girl. Yet, in our southern city,* in what riotous way does she spend her leisure hours when released from rehearsal. Adolphus of the fashionable tic and the

gaudy socks may languish at the stage door awaiting her coming; she slips out unseen, hires a bicycle —she and her kind commandeer every hireahle bicycle in the city and goes a-riding. Light of heart, and light of foot, is the chorus girl. She may yearn to drink cocktails, though her salary is not computed on a cocktail basis. Does she smoke.' Of course, she docs ; hut not as she takes the air a-wheel. It is thus we see her, enjoying the pleasures considered daring in the days when our maiden aunts were young. In the hurly-burly of the present age there is so little leisure for the innocent amusements of a day that is past. All honour to the chorus girls who hold aloft the flag of Victorian tradition in the teeth of a nor'-west wind! ' j 'hue flies, and we with Time, but until the fact is pressed home to us we cheerfully ignore his little humorous thrusts, and his benediction of an occasional grey hair nr a crowsfoot. Jubilees of church and school have become increasingly and dangerously the vogue during the last year or two. since the province is ageing, and fifty years is now a mere drop in a bucket which contains five and seventy anniversaries. Conversaziones, dinner and dances, with the mastication of much oldtime talk, provide the programme for such functions, and a church parade with due solemnity opens the scries of commemorations. Drawn by esprit dc corps, mid the common

bond of schooldays, the old scholars flock, and the earlier the schooldays the more ardently the ex-pupils pant to join in the festivities. Once in a life-time it is granted to us to see ourselves as it were in a mirror, lace to lace. We thought we were young till our classmates of years gone by brought the well-written pages of their countenances to dispel the illusion. Appalling fact "And I think, though I do not say it, how old and grey he has grown.” And his thoughts arc probably following on the same lines! The Christchurch Girls' High School jubilate next year, and it is proposed that the old girls should march in order of years to the Cathedral. Heaven, spare us! In the white ranks of unblemished womanhood many a black lie would walk unashamed. "Cay it with tea!" We have poureel a lew gallons of it down our sympathetic and admiring throats in touching and liquid farewell to our departing University

Wellington , the Capital City

graduates. We are modest folk, hut we have certainly scooped the pool oi university achievement this year. Oxford will be the brighter for the presence of our two Canterburv Rhodes scholars. Then, on the same boat, we are despatching a special!v bright star to shine in the firmament of Unglish Universitv life. Mi.-s Olive Rowe is the first holder of the Sir William Hartley scholarship, ALA. with quadruple honours Latin, Greek, brench and Unglish. Before such scholarship we hang our abashed, though matriculated, heads. 'T'hcre arc strange beings in our midst they who berserk in evening attire, and call themselves Savages at monthly intervals. Since "the female of the species is more deadly than the male," the Savages have, by excluding womankind, reserved the fearsome title for themselves. But. even as the chiefs of old bowed before the tolmngas, so the Savages of the South, have ac-

knowledged in practical form the scholarship of a woman. The greenstone and gold badge of membership has been bestowed upon Miss me. The third woman in the Dominion accorded the honour, she is now at liberty to launch a boomerang, dance a haka, or eat her enemies, tastefully seasoned, and cooked according to Savage recipe. f "'Vice a year the ordinary sober citizen, who cycles to Ins office in suit of tweed, dons military tittire, medals, and a martial air, and escorts his womenfolk to the officers' hall. ()11 such a night the League of Nations Union might call in vain, for who so militant as the peace-abiding citizen? The Hunt Club ball again affords an outlet for the repressed sartorial peacock instinct inherent in man. Last night a colonel: to-night, John Peel! Life holds its compensations! Among the pictures of Knglaud s most popular sport adorning the walls til this function one missed the Umpire's best-known hunting episode — he of Wales taking his weekly header into space. For the sake of charity — oh. Charity, what hast thou to answer for.'some of our foremost citizens heroically garbed themselves in gay raiment once more, and sheiked, shepherdessed, and saboted through an entire evening. So much gaiety has left us, even vicarious!v. jaded. In the words of a beautiful old song: li-crd. ah yes. so ti-crd. dear , kea-ily to say ‘(io-ood-nii/hr l"