Who Gossip Most

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 58, 1 November 1890, Page 3

Who Gossip Most

Men always think that when a lot of ■women get together they do nothing but talk scandal and pick each other to pieces. ISven ladies' guilds and dorcas meetings, they, maintain, are only excuses for gossip ■where the work only serves as a pretext for chattering. And as for afternoon teas they regard them as hotbeds of scandal. But then men are not always absolutely right. There have been occasions — of course very,. very few— when they have made mistakes ; but then they always keep so quiet over their blunders that we seldom hear of them. Unlike the gentler " sex* they know how to keep a quiet tongue ia their heads.. If the truth were known men are just as fond of gossip as women only it is a different sort of gossip. Of coursfe (remarks an exchange) they have not theall important topic of dress to talk about, which fprms so large a portion of feminine gossip, and they do not take so aosorbrag an interest in their fellowcreatures' domestic' arrangements as women do, and they do not talk about cooking or babies, or their complexion or waists, or housekeeping arid servants, or their ailments arid favorite medicines. But stop, or there wilt be nothing left for them to gossip about except politics, and political talk can scarcely totne under the head «| gossip. So what do they talk about! wfaeh not talking politics ; Their *' hobbies," of course. When a man has a hobby he can gossip to any extent "When three cricketers get together they will talk cricket gossip till niiii night ; the same with footballers, boating men, amateur gardeners, artists or musicians: They can all talk thefe favorite snl j<ct to rags. But then they will not call that gossip- it is only " having a yarn," But calL it what you like,'/ a rose by any other name will smell as sweet " and gos iip by any other name will sound as sweet . The place it really takes is the same as the " detail " in the foreground of a pictare—the one touch of Mature that makes the picture seem real ; ro gossip is the detail that makes the life interesting and real.' As le^ards mischief -making gossip and scandal, and of course is to be a void ed and the best way to do so is to bear in jnrnd the following lines: — • If you your lips Would keep from slips, Five things observe with care— To whom you speak, Of whom you speak. And Row and When and Where.