A PEARL NECKLACE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18898, 13 January 1927, Page 2

A PEARL NECKLACE.

YOUNG WOMAN'S BARGAIN. £SOO WORTH FOR 12/6. rso v i crs o*s coiS-sscoyscyr.' SYDNEY, January 7. A casual remark in a Melbourne drawing room recently led to the discovery by a young woman that a necklace she was wearing and for which she had paid 1-3 6d was worth £3OO. Conversation in the drawing room turned upon touring abroad, and the voting woman, heaving a sigh of hopelessness, exclaimed: "It has been the dream of my life to go to Engiand and visit the scene of my parents' childhood. but I cannot see any prospect of realisation." "Why is th3t so? It should not be impossible," said the man whose narration of the pleasures of travel had ied to the exclamation. The young woman answered that hers was the common reason —lack of the necessary funds.

'•Sell"your pearls, if yon are so desirous of travel, or pawn them," he pointing to a necklet she was wearing. When the young woman said that she questioned whether anyone would advance her the price of a tram fare on them, the man told her she ought to be able to raise £3OO on them from anv pawnbroker, and he himself offered her £350 for them, although declaring that it was a mean advantage to take, as he would make a profit on them within 2i hours. • All eyes were on the string of pearls. The wearer laughing! v° invited the company to guess what she had paid for them. The man who had made the offer to her declared that she could not have paid less than £3OO for them. Whereupon the young woman remarked: "I paid 12s 6d for them. Y'ou may be joking, but I am speaking the truth." "All at 12s 6d." She then-explained that she • had visited a warehouse, and coming to a table on which was a basket of loose necklets marked "All at 12s 6d each," she had selected one. Believing now that a mistake might have been made, the young woman went next day to the warehouse and consulted the manager, to whom she related the incident in the drawing room. The manager took the necklet, and said that he saw through it all. The pearls were actually worth the price the man had mentioned, if not more. They had been imported for the wife of a member of the firm, and had arrived at the warehouse at the same time as a consignment of imitation pearls. The assistant who had unpacked the stuff had blundered. Putting aside a cheap set for the wife of the member of the firm, he had thrown the genuine pearls in with the rest. The pearls put aside in error as thc genuine set were in due course handed over to thc warehouseman's wife, who had been wearing them with conscious pride before her fashionable friends who had joined with her and her husband in expressions of admiration. The innocent bargain hunter had, with becoming modesty, worn the pearls she had picked upon the bargain table, not knowing their value. The young woman . was thanked for her honesty, but is still no nearer fulfilment of her ambition to visit. England.

A PLEA FOR MARRIED MEN.

(By One of Them.) Lady, be good to him. After all, he is your husband. And Matrimony is not a coconut-shy where they change all bad ones. Ton drew him in the Great Annual Sweep conducted by the old, old firm of Cupid, Limited. And he has his points. You know those better than anyone, if you 'will only take the trouble to regard his sunny aspect and to forget that there is a shady side to every man. Of course, he is intensely irritating, but it is well known that every woman who wears a wedding ring carries also a heavy cross. He'll get better by and by. A fairly new husband ia like a new undervest, irritating at times, and is really most comfortable when he is darned all over, and is rapidly going to pieces. In managing him, remember that half the art of government consists in keeping one eye shut. ■ And don't worry about his soul. Husbands have none.

Nor flatter or flutter yourself with jealously. The average husband is exceedingly faithful in his affections. .■ The man who gets love or smallpox twice is a susceptible. He ought to be kept in a home. The reason why you should be good to him is that there is nothing in the world more helpless than a married man. The whole world of woman conspires to make him so and keep him so.

The domestic arts are hidden from him in his boyhood. Women—mother and sisters—bring him up helpless, and then take him to church and hand him over to another woman, counting themselves well rid of a family responsibility. Sisters who have married off their brothers generally keep a Pekingese. The only exception to the rule of helpless men are sailors. But these are never at home. And a sailor retired from the sea soon relapses into an ordinary man.

He boast 3 of the days when he used to turn out for vhe twelve to four watch like clockwork. But, once retired from the sea, he likes his breakfast in bed as much as any other man. In short, men have never learned the domestic arts or the art of making themselves comfortable. There is nothing extraordinary in this. For countless centuries this has been woman's job. It is only in recent years that women have become competitors of men and have started to make them uncomfortable. Hitherto marriage has been man's pastime and woman's business. But things are changing. But the average husband is still a domestic blank. Leave him absolutely alone for a couple of days and you will find that he has slipped back twenty centuries of domestic evolution. The chances are that you will find him taking his bread-and-cheese dinner off the corner of the "Daily Mail," reading the football as he eats —and about eight halfbottles of beer in the cupboard—all opened none finished! And, ye gods! His bed! It is like the nest of an orang-outang! Women complain much about their husbands. But there is only one place where they train the ideal and domesticated husband, and that is in a reformatory school.