UNNECESSARY NOISES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XXV, 24 June 1899, Page 880

UNNECESSARY NOISES.

Very few of us, in this practical, goahead age, will agree with Tennyson’s Lotos-eaters, that ‘There is no joy but calm.’ On the other hand, any man or woman possessed of a sensitive nature and a refined ear will admit that there is, at the present day, a great deal of unnecessary noise. Carts, lorries, and other vehicles of the heavy ec'ass are constructed without any regard to the comfort of pedestrians, who often have to cease their conversation till the rumbling, jolting machine has passed out of hearing. The shrill whistle of the. street boy, who is apparently trying to ‘blow his front teeth out,’ is often a positive torture; and one leally longs to inflict corporal punishment on the übiquitous small boy who finds a fierce delight in kicking an empty meat tin along the causeway, or in hammering on an old pail with a piece of wood. Street noises are bad enough, but unnecessary noise in the house is. I think, far worse. I pity, from the bottom of my heart, the mistress whose maids cannot be taught to go quietly about their duties. We must not expect the manners of these daughters of the people to have the repose that marks the caste of Vere de Vere; but there is really no reason why noisy habits, which may suit the but-and-ben of their childhood, should not be discontinued when they enter a refined household. Why need a girl close a door noisily, when it is just as easy to do so without a sound? Why

should not forks, spoons, knives, plates, etc., be removed, or deposited in their proper place quietly instead of with an amount of clanging and jingling which simply denotes carelessness? I once had an excellent maid (as far as work and abilities were concerned) who, in spite of repeated warnings, would persist in singing revival hymns at the top of her by no means musical voice. I shudder to this day at the recollection of her rendering of ‘Hold the Fort;’ while her successor incessantly hummed fragments of airs in a minor key, which, though not so noisy as the vocal tortures of her predecessor, was infinitely more exasperating!. Of course, we don’t expect our maids to go about their work absolutely dumb. I like to hear laughter in the kitchen, as long as it is of the cheery kind, and not ‘the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.’ Some girls have most musical voices—none more so than those of our Highland lassies, or the daughters of the Emerald Isle, and, when duly modulated, it is a pleasure to hear them. If domestic servants only knew how essential to promotion in their honourable profession are quiet habits, refined manners of speaking, and gentle movements, they would, I am sure, religiously avoid making the unnecessary noises which too frequently make their presence in the household a bane, rather than a blessing.