A New Society for Auckland.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue I, 4 July 1903, Page 59

A New Society for Auckland.

(By

“The Cynic.”)

“The bubble reputation!” What a bubble! More of bubble one would think, in this City of Auckland than in any other human sink in Christendom. “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,” and the number of idle hands —idle, dainty hands—in this town must be prodigiously disproportionate to its female population. It is hardly worth while wearing clothes, every gutter girl can see through them, for the report of the ugliness beneath must have reached even to her, and the mask has lost its uses. Even were the ugliness not there, it were useless to exhibit a white skin; the easy answer would be, “A whited sepulchre; prepared chalk!” If any town were ever the hot-bed of conventions, and ever an exhibition of the degeneration of conventions to pestilent fetishes, Auckland is that town. Convention is lord of the surface of things; to it all people must bow in the regulation of their narrow lives, in the cut of their clothes, the movement of their bodies, the expressions of their faces. It has been said that a stranger who comes to Auckland must either be a draper or an accountant. If he is the first, he is a fortunate capitalist, and may rise to City Councillor; if the second, he may, or may not. have brains, but he must be content to be as cunning as the dove and as gentle—as the same. This worship of the rules of the mediocre can but result in the rule of the mediocre. Turn where one may in Auckland, there is never a flash of inspiration in a face, a divine chord heard at a concert, a great thought greatly expressed upon the stage. The rule of the mediocre is equivalent to the reign of cash; and here it means, too, the reign of cash in small quantities — mediocrity again. On the surface, then, convention is supreme. But if one looks below', can one but be staggered by the natural effects that “jump to the eyes?” Who would care —or dare—to hold the mirror up to Auckland? Who is not afraid to put a blade under the veneer? For we know that the wood beneath is rotten and worm-eaten, with, as well as against, the grain. To deal with all the festering evils in Auckland Society is too hard a task, too painful, and one that conventions, again, would forbid. But one may, as well as ought, attempt the healing of one sore to which end a united effort might avail somewhat—l mean the scab of gossip. Do not men in this town ever shiver at the thought that the names of their sisters, wives, and mothers are used as the common ball of the hideous gossip that flourishes at the social meetings, where reputations are slashed from their frames with the lunatic malice of the picture gallery iconoclast? No one is safe; no purity avails. The legend “honi soit qui mal y pense” is unknown. A woman with nothing to do and nothing to think of (except herself) has been a danger from the time of Eve till the present day. In Auckland there are many women with a daily task of afternoon-tba and croquet, only—the foster-parents of the evil thing I treat of. It is notorious that a tale once told at a ladies’ gathering grows from that moment—possibly from an innocent and even pretty little seed—into a damnable fungus. A man’s reputation matters little; if it is bad it may very likely advantage him; if it is good, he is not harmed; if it is indifferent, he is completely saved, for then he fits into the shelves of the mediocre. But with a woman! Then one’s blood boils—male blood, anyhow—and the mildest spirited man may be excused for cursing those of the other sex whose tongues are poisoned swords, whose minds are wells of malice, and whose method of self-pro-tection consists in hurling mud at their sisters in order to detract the suspicious eye.

A new Society, then, for Auckland! It is to consist not of those who call themselves gentlemen—their name might be too mighty a legion—no; but of those who call one another gentlemen, and the object is the suppression of scandal among women. One can hear the halflaugh of forced derision from many a guilty woman’s mouth as the society’s object is stated to her. One would be glad to see some blench of shame and guilt as well. To bring those women to an obedience—forced or voluntary—towards a new reading of the Commandment, “Thou ehalt not bear false wit-

ness against thy neighbour" (whatever the sex) —that is to be the object of the new society, and that is the object of this article. Ignorance, rank crass, appalling, is largely the cause of this abominable thing; so few women know the difference, to a just mind, of tales and gossip at fifth and sixth hand, and what is considered evidence; so few, again, know and appreciate the fact that it is nothing less than a foul crime to invent, however ingeniously, a scandal to make a croquet holiday.

“Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought,’* he said, “and the tale Is yet to run. By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer—What ba’ ye done?"

The eurse of Tomlinson should overtake these barren souls when they knock at Heaven’s gate. They are full of a withering self-satisfaction; sati-fied that they themselves are the worthiest of humankind, that their husbands and children are also worthy, and that those nearest to them are the only human beings whose reputations are to be strictly preserved—for are they not the salt of the earth? Pah! That self-centric theory of the universe, the be’oved religion of these folk! It offends the soul and churns up the bile. Surely, the society here suggested could achieve much in the way of bursting up the unholy league of scandalmongers by showing what kind of woman is appreciated by those whose appreciation is most worth having. It should be an association of “white men.” in the sense in which we so often hear those words used; a select circle of enemies of the easily-spoken gossip that can blast more effectively—because more insidiously—the present and future good name and happiness of many a person in Auckland, who, in character, in purity, in individuality, soars far above the secret foe who, living in the pride of powevand position, lightly break the hearts of those whose shoe-latchets they are not, morally and intellectually, fit to fasten. It is a war against the malicious tongue that is declared. Who will join the crusade?