STRAY NOTES.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 647, 5 July 1921, Page 8

STRAY NOTES.

(By “Don Quisote.”) “Friendship, like courtesy, is oldfashioned and out of date/’ If these words are true, and really one cannot help thinking there is a certain amount of truth in them, when one looks out for out-standing examples of either—well, generally speaking, one looks in vain. Where will you find a friendship like that of David or Jonathan, who, in the words of the Holy" Writ, “loved with a love passing the love of woman,” in the world to-day. I think with the facilities for travel we enjoy,, we'are less dependant on those immediately around—we can Step into the train or motor car and seek “fielcfe and pastures new.” “One foot on sea and one on shore to one thing con staht never.” We are a petty lot, and we all. are i inclined to worship the great god Self. Self-interest spoils many a good friendship in the making. We are too apt to consider friendships a onesided affair; its all take and no give with most of us. So many of our friends are too ready to assure us that they will do anything else for us but the thing we happen to want, and perchance we are tarred with the same brush. Mythology and fietiomabound with instances of most perfect friendship. Damon and Pythias, whose names are synonomus with ideal friendship, will be handed down for all time. Shakespear’s Bassanio and Antonio, .rvhose friendship would have been rudely severed by Shylock, the Jew, had it not been for the eloquent pleading of Portia, the supposed doctor 61. law ; young Gay’s pitying admiration for Carker, the junior, in Dicken’s Domby and Son, and many hundreds of others.

And Courtesy, where will you find it ? It is not much use looking for it on either side of the counter of the fashionable shops, neither do you get too much of it at the hands of Civil Servants (what a sad misnomer)' and at the ifp-to-date tea room or restaurant where you do the waitingwhile the young ladies, whose job you have apparently usurped, gossip with each other, or engage in airy persiflage with some young and spritely office clerk, who seems to consider the waitresses badinage as a “sauce piequante” with his lunch, ar.d if you should manage, with great dexterity, to catch the eye of one of the attendant damsels, you are superciliously informed you are“rtot one of her , tables.” As- 1 a matter of fact, you did not think you were, but at 'fast.'your luck is in, and you manage to give your order, which is condescendingly taken and in due time “all things come round to those who will but wait.” It comes,, but be prudent and don’t want, any more milk or bread and butter, or cakes, than have beer, brought ; if so, you are .likely to want. Even in the tram car, if you should be sufficiently courteous to offer your hard-won seat to one of the opposite sex (and heaven send you are) don’t always expect a pleasant smile and a “thank you” in exchange, because you won’t always get it.

But, in spite of it all, if trouble comes along, then is the time when yen will still meet with kindness -in heaped up measure and running over. Women' with families of their own and ever-pressing work, will gather round to see if they can do anything to help. I know of one man who, before his own day’s work began, milked twelve cows for a neighbour day after day, because there was sickness in the house. And 'women, I know of hundreds of instances where their unselfish devotion ito those in sickness or in trouble, is beyond all praise. Wfll may • the poet have written.: “When pain and anguish wring the brow a ministering angel thou."’