FIVE O’CLOCK TEA CHAT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 4, 24 January 1891, Page 15

FIVE O’CLOCK TEA CHAT.

? < ILLY : •It is too hot to di ink tea this afternoon, jKjOy®! so here is some delicious Boston cream. ’ Gladys: * You are quite right. Effervescing aJRSw JJC mixtures are more suited to the present temperature than hot tea. But what is the matter with Vera?’ £ Vera : * I am boiling over with indignation against some person or persons unknown.’ t; Gladys : ‘ Try and cool down, and tell us all about the trouble.’ Vera: ‘ I have just bought some of the new 2£d postage stamps, and a more twopenny halfpenny production I never saw.’ Gladys : ‘ Let me see one. Ah, yes, it also struck me as about the ugliest caricature of H.1.M., our beloved Queen, I have had the pleasure of beholding. Pray, who is responsible for this hideous production ?’ Vera : ‘That’s what I want to know.’ Dolly : *ls it not a prize design ?’ Vera : ‘ Then who called for designs, and above all, who decided on the worst, I mean the best? We shall, indeed, have our loyalty questioned at home if we make such faces of our Sovereign. ’ Dolly : ‘ I do not know who decided the important ques-

accused of personal animosity when I remark —strictly between ourselves —that it looks like the product of a liberal celebration of Christmas Eve.’ Gladys : ‘ Having pretty well stamped it with our disapproval, let us, as Lady Janet Roy says, change the conversation.’ Vera : ‘ I see that some good women in England are again pitying the poor Maoris. ’ Dolly : ‘ What is the matter now ?’ Vera : ‘ Well, as there are no gentlemen present I can tell you freely. It is all the fault of the civilised white woman. They wore various garments, some of which found favour with the Maori women, some did not. But, alas ! one article of attire instantly attracted their attention, and the dark-skinned beauties took to it with marvellous and regrettable rapidity.’ Dolly : ‘ And that is, or was — ?’ Vera: ‘ Corsets, Dolly, corsets and tight-lacing. Not having had our hereditary accustomness to this pernicious system, the Maori women are quickly lacing themselves to death. There is no doubt that those who survive will get used to it, and their children will not mind it at all ; but just at present, some of the Maori women who go about their daily duties with a corset as tightly laced as the united efforts of half a dozen kind friends can lace it are suffering dreadfully. Gladys : ‘ Where did you hear this ?’ Vera : ‘ Do you not yet know that we must go abroad to learn all about our home life ? I found >t all given as gospel in a capital English paper. ’ Dolly : ‘ Here comes Stella, looking as cool as ice water. How do you manage it, dear?’ Stella: ‘Cabbage leaf in my hat, and doing a certain amount of walking every day ; eschewing hot tea and meat in the middle of the day, feeding chiefly on vegetables and fruit, with a sea-bath thrown in !’ Vera : ‘What a mixture ! I was just going to call attention to a grievous complaint that I heard made the other day.’ Gladys : ‘ What is it ? Drainage ?’ Vera : ‘ No, though there is no doubt that all really careful housewives should see to it in the summer months that their houses are properly drained and ventilated. Men do not notice it. They leave the house early in the morning whilst the day is young and the air pure and fresh. They return at night when — almost everywhere in New Zealand —a healthy sea-breeze has sprung up. They know nothing of the poisonous exhalations which the women and children breathe in the heated mid-day hours.’ Stella : ‘ You are quite right, Vera, and this is a woman’s question. But they themselves are greatly to blame. They will pour cabbage-water, bad soup, sour milk, anything like that, dish-water,

soap-suds, just outside the door, where the hot sun soon produces from these materials a most unhealthy odour. If the lady of the house does not perpetrate this betise herself, she allows her servant to do so. But this is a digression. What is your complaint, Vera ?’ Vera: ‘ It seems to have faded into nothingness beside the important subject we have just touched upon. However, as our rulers and dear School Boards think nothing so important for our children as education—health, morals, and manners all being relentlessly shoved on one side—l will mention it. Some people know next to nothing of composition.’ Gladys : ‘ That is sad. Of course you do not r efer to the composition of a pudding, for instance, that would, I know, not be considered a sufficiently useful or important art to be taught to the daughters of our working men.’ Vera: * No, nor even the composition of candles, which might be useful, so we ignorant women think, in up-country homes. I merely refer to the composition of letters, stories, aud such necessary articles. Really, one can hardly believe that there is such an enormous sum wasted, I mean expended, every year over education when one reads the literary productions of most people.’ Dolly : ‘ That just shows how necessary education is.’ Gladys: ‘lt also shows that women must have votes to enable them to have some share in deciding the im|*ortant

question of the most thoroughly practical, useful, and economical system of education for our young people. Women are most successful on the London School Boards. It is a disgrace to the men of New Zealand that they do not admit them in this colony to a position which they aie most certainly well qualified to occupy. It is a short sighted and narrow minded policy that keeps them out.’ Dolly: * Hear, hear, only I wish our rulers and lawmakers could hear you.’ Gladys: ‘ I doubt whether they would have courage to bring forward any Bill to right us‘in this particular, even if they could be brought to own its justice and necessity.’ Stella : ‘ I do not see how any one can possibly be ill nowadays. There are so many wonderful experiments going on that I should imagine all invalids would be either killed or cured at once. Vera : ‘ Ah, you refer to the new cure—the Kneip.’ Dolly : * Please, what is that ?’ Vera: * A gentleman, Father Kneip, recommends a place called Waereshofen, near Munich, where certain treatment, if undergone, will produce most wonderful results.’ Dolly : ‘ What is the treatment ?’ Stella : * I will quote from an authority on the subject, which will tell you all I know myself. “If Waereshofen really becomes a fashionable health resort, there will be some strange sights to be seen. It sounds queer enough to read of a Rothschild running along without either shoes or

stockings, but how much more extraordinary it would be to meet the belles of a London season, say the Duchess of , or Lady , with petticoats discreetly short, beneath which their bare feet peep in and out, running up and down the little village, with perhaps the Prime Minister and the Irish Secretary, also in a shoeless condition, to keep them company. And yet this is very likely to happen, for Father Kneip has, it is said, been working such extraordinary cures of late that people are flocking to the tiny village to be made well. I believe the barefoot peregrinations are sometimes along the roads, but more often along a narrow stream in the place up and down which the patients run.” ’ Dolly : ‘ Why can’t we run about barefoot at home?’ Gladys : • You would be considered a lunatic to go in for that sort of exercise anywhere but at a duly authorised and fashionable place. Just the same as you would not dream of eating your dinner with your fingers in Wellington, hut would soon think it correct in other localities.’ Dolly : * By the bye, I heard a good story about mothers-in-law from Palmerston the other day. There were two young people who had just become engaged, and as soon as the first kisses had l>een exchanged they began to discuss ways and means. Said he : “My angel, there is one thing I have to tell yon. When we are married, I must have my mother to live with ns, because I can't all'ord to keep two establislihients going. You will find her very helpful. She

is always sewing anti knitting and mending. I do hope, my darling, you won’t object.” She : “ No, indeed, I’ll just be delighted to have her help ; and now if we can only presuade my mother to come and do housework, we’ll be really comfortable. ” ’