Week-end Chat

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 172, 7 August 1937, Page 13

Week-end Chat

COUSIN BOSE.

COUNTRY ANDi TOWN.

Dear Everyone, — I .am most glad to have so many bright letters and send my thanks to you all. New writers appear in this column nearly every week. Just one little comment 1 would like to make is this: May I ask you to be very care.f/ul before you blame the paper for mis-prints in your special letter. I must tell you a secret. More thar half of the letters received for this column are re-written before they are sent to the printer. The average hand-writing is not by any means cop-per-plate. So please, if you send letters that maybe are not carefully written, be fair to the eyes that may have to puzzle out weirdly penned words forgive any natural mistakes. Cousin Bose wishes especially that hand-writing was better at gifls' private schools (not only in this distrlet). The average girl who has left a private school writes appallingly — at least those do who write to Cousin Bose and they have been many. Dear Cousin Bose, — You have invited correspondents to name their favourite book, or books, this week, but alas, at the moment, may it not be prolonged, quite another objective rules my mental horizon. One faces it unceasingly in walks abroad — viz., the shocking untidiness in this •our favoured village of Havelock, thence deviating^ to Hastings, and, probably, infecting the whole Dominion. How to prevent it? Well, in my opinion, it should be attaeked at its rootlefs, the schools should be cireularised, and children taught not to leave loose paper a.bout. Their parents, equally guilty, shed a mass of horrors on the roadside, ranging from rusty kerosene or fruit tins to broken bottles, or pieces of filthy linen that offend the eye. Their juniors contribute a rich .quota in the shape of cigarett'e ends and ompty packets. Dogs are not altogether guiltless, but, at least, the bones they leave are clean. Quite recently a largehcarted woman told me that she had collected the debris outmde her fenee and'made a bonfire of it. Alas! I am not equally generous, neither have I time to act the part of seavenger, so I trust that by ventilat:ng this matter in your columns the ruJes of hygiene may be observed ianj order restored. From a perturbed and agitated "HEALTH LOVER." Dear Cousin Bose, — Name our fa\'0urite books you ask? With pleasure:— "Red Pottage," by Mary Cholmondely; "The Sowers," by Soton Merrimanj "Cranford,"" by Mrs. Gaskell. All old books, you will say disparagingly. Yes. So many modern ones are just a flashj next year you have forgotten the names of the characters. We have not really lived with them as we do with Jane Eyre, to take an in^tance, or listened to pld Weller's advice to Sammivel, or even made a beef-steak pudding with Ruth Pinch. Haphazard instances, but the novel-reader will understand, and, anyway, to quote the immortal William, "I am not bound to please thee with my answer." — Yours, etc., . "MIRANDA." • • # Dea'r Cousin Bose, — My favourite book varies with the stage • of thought I pass through. At present 1 like the bright and breezy travel tales of Eichard Haliburton and was transported over the world on wings of his book, "The Magic Carpet. " — Y ours, etc., "BOOK LOVER." Dear Oousin Bose, — About those beans: I was speaking to a friend the other day and she said, "the young people are going otf meat," and I said, "Yes, Mine are, too, and it's a puzzle to know what to give them for breakf'ast as those won 't take por ridge or eggs or bacon." So I've started on beans — Soya beans. I soak them two nights and blench them by bnnging them to the boil and throwing away the water. Then cover with water and boil till tender; add seasoning and tomato sauce and serve very hot on buttered toast. I lind the best plan is to have somo beans already cooked, aud they can be served in a few minutes at any time. It's much more iiiteresting than getting them cut of a tin, and we hear so much about the good food properties of soya beans these days and we are all interested in good food. — With best wishes, — "ANOTHER ROSE." • « « Dear Cousin Bose, — 1 partly agrep with "Doubting Thomas" and his letter deprecating too much cousideration for a ehild's individuality. But we certaiiily have progressed since the days when "Mrs. Sherwood" depicts the excellent "Mr. * Fairchild" as talring young Harry and Lucy to gaze upon the body of a man hahging on a gibbet and waving in tho air. This was a moral lesson to warn Harry and Lucy of wha't ' niight liappen to Ihern if they straved tioni the right patli. McrCifulIy evjldoers have not been hung in public for Very many years, perhaps seventy- . " If a child is afraid of "the dark " do let it have a liglit till sleep nialces it obliviou.3 of the dark. It is an incurable panic. No longej-, I !>clieve, do we make a child "leave a clean plate," which means ealing fat, revoiting to most children. Can wq wonder if »ome bitn fell u, tlio floor? Sonie children 's hymns are so morbid, the oue beginniug "Within the churehynrd tlde by sido" »n«3

going on later ' ' They cannot rise and" come to church with us, for they are dead." But are they? Quite recently a grown-up woman confessed how fearfully she looked at the graves when as a child she went past them going to church. Write again, "Doubting Thomas."-— Yours, etc., "THOMASINA." Dear Cousin Bose, — Will you please thank a kind person who left a large parcel of old silk stockings at Garratt's store in Napier? The old semi-invalid will be able to finish her cover .for ,her couch and have some to spr.re. — Yours, etc., "OLD STOCKINGS." • *■ » • Dear Cousin Bose, — 1 have been visualising rooms without a colour scheme since I read yonr recent eomments on furnishing rooms. If money is no object, rooms can be made t? look restful • and charming without a • colour scheme, but i± means are limited, it would be a most disappointing experiment to. attempt furnishing without one. Inexpensive things need so much more care and thought in their arrangement, while expensive and artistic articles arrange themselves. — 'Yours, etc., "HOME." I thank you all and hope that still more readers will send in their bright ideas. * Your friend.