AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 11

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OP GENERAL INTEREST. (By SHIRLEY.) 'It is not proposed to take backward children from unwilling parents and put them into institutions," says Dr. Ada Paterson. And gentle Dr. Ada is certainly not proposing to do it, but what other people are going to do or not going to do is quite another matter. One of our New Zealand statesmen in England two years ago said in the "Empire Review" that it was not proposed to make mothers pay for their children in institutions, and all the time it is being done, not unjustly either, when father can't be caught. Our merry, amused attitude towards those laws that are "not being proposed," but yet seem to happen, always reminds me of the three little mice in the cartoon, who ran gleefully back to Mrs. Mouse.' "Oh, dad's having such a lovely game?" "Who's playing with him?" thus mum, pleased that her husband is being sought after. "A great big pussy cat." * * w .

"Back to childhood" dances are not much known in New Zealand. Perhaps we are rather nervous of such returning even in play. Australians, however, seem to like this form of sport. In a recent affair of this kind in an Australian town the boy's prize was won by a young man who put on a galatea blouse, short pants, holey stockings, a carefully soiled collar, with a face to match, while his hand held a hoop. The woman prize winner hit on the original idea of having her countenance ° not "made up." So we get the difference. Man reverts to childhood by making his face dirty, woman by making hers clean. • * • " •

America seems to be getting a little tired of its over organised childhood. "Will no one say a harsh word against the boy scout," says one critic pathetically. "Isn't sand-lot baseball, duck-on-the ponds rock, the noble game of pirates, and in short all forms of spontaneous play, jeopardised by the boy-exploitation ideals of Supervised Activity, good deedism, and right by squads?" I do not follow quite those mysterious games, not being versed in the American language, except that baseball is our rounders, and duck-on-the rock is probably French tig. It is clear, however, that the new generation is no longer, as someone has said elsewhere, the spontaneous generation.

Mention was made in these columns of America's bright idea, which perhaps neea> s otied the above outburst—the Boy Scout was to rebuke every lady whom he found smoking, and we prophesied reprisals. London "Punch" has evidently the same fear, or hope, for we read":

Oh, what Is the matter with Cyrus, the Scout, And why Is he sombre and sad? What sudden calamity's quite blotted out The smile of that excellent lad? Until it appears from the look In his

eye, That poor little Cyrus is going to cry?

The reason is soon given.

Some lady he publicly dared to correct _Has clipped his impertinent ear He's thinking how often he'll suffer that way After doing, as ordered, his good deed - a day.

Mr. P. Fraser says in the House that if women police are introduced into New Zealand, "jobs would almost have to be found for them." Omitting, the "almost," this would be altogether a new thing in politics? "Some of the type offering should not be let loose on the world, they finished me," thus Mr. Wilford (and in the privacy of our manless tea parties we will whisper that there is a lot in this). But when these honourable gentlemen go on to state the old myth "our hearts rule our heads," and we remember the male juror who lets women off because they cry, and the judge who says they will "suffer enough in remorse." we incline to think that the jurymen's bench, if not the policemen's beat, should at least be ours.