MEN WHO WILL NOT CARRY PARCELS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2721, 16 March 1916, Page 2

MEN WHO WILL NOT CARRY PARCELS

AN INVETERATE AVERSION

(By "A Suburban Wife," in the "Daily Mail.")

My husband has taken the war very seriously. He has done everything that-'a patriot ought to do. As a special constable he has given up several nights' sleep every week and spent countless dreary hours of rain and tempest as a night nurse of waterworks or railway bridges. Ho lias subscribed generously to war charities. He has assisted a score of patriotic organisations. He has 'practised strict economy, put tile savings in the War Tjoan, and, in his forty-second year, he lias made a false attestation and is tho wearer of an armlet. There is only Dne thing that nothing will persuade him to do, and that is to carry parcels.- : And therein he is like nine men out of ten.

: Women can usually understand tho mainsprings of men's foibles and prejudices; they cannot understand why men will not carry parcels. Men are seldom as subtle as women are, but no whim or prcjndicc of women is as subtle and as contradictory as men's hatred of parcels. Men have the' sairie instinctive and irrational hate-of parcels that women ( often have for women. Wives can. usually _ make their husbands do their will; it is only in the comic papers at Christmas time that they make thorn carry parcels; never in real life.

This parcel-hatred of men is universal; it is a perfect totem of the upper and .middle classes-, but the working man is almost as bad. How often has anyoho seen a working man carrying a parcel? He will carry a bag of tools; lie is oblivious of a bottle neck that protrudes from a dinner basket. He will not carry a parcel. Watch the Saturday night shopping crowds in a vvorking-class district. ;Thc wives are laden like camels; tlio husbands saunter alongside them like Prussian, officers leading the advance across the desert. Thoy 'wi!l even push a' perambulator rather than carry a parcel. If the parcel is too heavy for the wife to carry, tho husband will condescend thus mucn, he does not mind wheeling it.' Reverenco for Totems, 'But there is no shadow of argument for men's hidebound law that they must not carry parcels. They already do carry many parcels, but, with that inherent complex childishness of their simple sex which perhaps makes us women love them so, they have a code of laws (invented by some ancestor of tho author of "Alice in "Wonderland") which dictates what parcels are parcels and isfiat parcels aro not parcels. The parcels that come under the criminal code us "parcels" they will'not carry, even if tliey were salving them from a burning house, or bearing them bountifully to the poor and needy, or hurrying with them -to the bedside of the sick. They are ready to hurry, but a porter or a boy messenger must hurry with them. The parcels that are not parcels can be heavy as lead, knobbly as sacks of clinkers,' awkward as folding chairs, and tlie.v will cheerfuly carry them. It is neither laziness nor brutality, therefore, that prohibits man from carrying parcels; it is a totem. Men, being simple things, have a great reverence for totems. Boys' schools bristle with strange totems, and the oarccl totem is even greater with boys than with men. They grow up in it. Parcels that men may carry are golrciub holders, suit-cases (within limits), and one article of food only, and that Is game unwrapped. Perhaps someone will contend that suit-cases are not parcels. I fail to see the distinction, 01 why it is a terrible thing to carry, a suit wrapped ¥i brown paper and no , offence at all to carry the same suit ' wrapped in brown leather. Golf clubs 1 in their cases are parcels,' and particu- i larlv uncomfortable parcels, too. My j husband is a la-jvyer, and in his deeds ; lie calls'a piece of land "all that parcel j tif land," so I think that 110 one ourfit to argue that "parcel" is not an elas- ! tie term. Ths Pheasant Mystery. • One night last week my_ husband came home quite cheerfully with a bracu of pheasants . slung 011 a' string. lie would rather die than carry home a brace of pheasants wrapped up neatly in brown paper, or even done up in a basket. It is against .the totem. We have a neighbour —a kind, inoffensive, and blameless man —who my husband despises with a, hearty despite simply because he often brings home fish in a basket. Rather than ever bring me home fresh fish from London, even under cover of these lampless nights, my husband endures the local fishmonger. He artsrily calls him the "antique dealer," but that is all. 9-Y sters a!ono come .undeir I 'man's definition of -the parcel that is not a parcel. It takes something moro oven than woman's subtlety to discover why it is modern atolv good tone to carry a bag of oysters and execrably had tone to carry a bag of whiting. My husband brought home a braca of pheasants, but if I dared to ask him to bring home a .brace of chops, even unwrapped and 011 a string, he would bo shockingly affronted. My husband is glad to walk about gasworks all night for his country. He suffers interminable committee meetings for' bis country. He is ready to give up his home, dig trenches in the mud for his country, and even die fot his country. 111 fact, lie would much rather die for his country than carry a parcel. Often ho says to mo: "Wa ought all to do everything we can to conform to'the shortage of labour .and help filings along." And so I believe lie would do anything—except carry parcels.—(The "Daily Mail.")