Week-end Chat

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 20, 16 October 1937, Page 13

Week-end Chat

COUSIN

ROSE.

COUNTRY ANDb TOWN.

October 16, 1937. Dear Everyone,— Show Week ahoad and everyone busy with plans for this, entertaining visitors, or sharing in the general excitement in soine particular way. We may say we are tired of Shows and such community efforts, but tho fact remains that each year it becomes more of an institution^ and everyone who joins in the spirit of it is eheered and brighter for letting care go by for a day. Given a fine day the Show can bo quite an education even if it is only as a study in humanity. Those who rise superior to the mixed joys of side-shows can take a book and reud by tho lake under the shadowed branches of the large trees. And tho lucky ones with big cars can have a really jolly picnic which friends will gladiy join if a good lunch basket and holiday spirit is there. There is quite a lot to be said for a Show, and to the young it is the excitement of the year. Someone asked Cousin Rose how their daughter could make some pocket money cach week without neglecting 6chooi work. A New Zealand girl who had lived for years in New York gave good ideas on this subject. She said that there the high school girls mind i'aniilies while the parents go out to parties or pictures. They sif for about two and a-half hourS while children sleep, to see they are cared for and come to no harni, and meanwhile do their homework. There is quite an opening for a trustworthy girl who wants to combine study with earning, for many parents are very tied. The chief trouble in emall places is that those who want to earn are too afraid to say so, and so no-one knows how much they can really do. With Christmas ahead there might easily be an opening for a girl with clever fingers to make little gifts which she could sell. Everyone likes an original gift. Neat cardboard boxes, covered in gay cretonne, with a lining of plain paper need no work, but pasting and iitting, and with a tie of ribbon are very useful and eheap to make. Then there are gifts for the gardener — dyed sack aprons, kneelers. little forks with painted handles and an initial on. On small pots of home-made marmalade or jelly, or boxes of homemade sweets, all are within tho scope of a girl who really has some energy. Doll-dressing is almost out of fashion, yet dolls never lose their charm for small girls, and these might be dressed and soid at quite a goodly profit. The chief trouble often is tbat mothers daiap their danghters' enthusiasm when they try to be original, or father puts his foot down and squashes ideas that are unconventional. A Hastings man said recently at a meeting, "We are each afraid of the other fellow. " Men who hand a certain amount of money to their wives for houeekeeping are being confronted with the fact, all over New Zealand, that more money is needed for simple living than 12 months ago. One woman who lives alone and who can therefore tabulate her expenditure closely, says she xeekons up her payments, and 5/- more in the pound is needed for the same plain living. Meat is so dear that families are finding that vegetarianism is more . economical; bacon is expensive^ eggs cost more than is usual at this time, for even the hens seem to have taken on the 40,-hour week ldea. However, children eat as much as ever and with a 25 per cent. rise in living, father will have to cut ofE some tobacco and cultivate every inch of garden for vegetables, and mother will have to study domestic economy harder than ever. One vegetable that is easy to grow, very nice to eat, and a good nourishing food not used half enough.is Indian corn — maize — the special kind for boiling young and rubbing with butter when hot. Just pop in the seeds and the sun will bring them into wonderful plants. Isn't it a strange thing how leaders of fashion are such clever psychologists that they understand that man can havo his ideas changed as long as tho process is a very gradual one? in that, women are dilferent. They rather like a swift transition. Skirte go up, and skirts go down. Necks are cut high on dresses and then nothing but low ones are seen. Men who for the ' last hundred years have thought it correct to be' eoberly clad, forgetting the gay'waistcoats, the satin knee breeches, the powdered wigs^ and the coloured satin coats of earlier history, are now conservatively aeeepting the fact that a man may wear a green shirt, a yellow jumper, a tartan tie and a checked tweed hat without alienating public opinion aa ten years ago he would have done. So gradually and gently do tho fashion experts change the male outlook. And women look on and smile and alter their own garmentg as .often as they can. The followiug is another lettex upon the mode of address in opening telephone convorsations: — "Dear Cousin Rose, — A pity "16's" bright letter missed the point with livo sixes. Hear, hear, "16." It always'makes mo cross when maids, etc. ask, "Who is spealcing?" I yearn ; to say, "Mrs Biiggins. " Good luck | to your coluinn — Yours etc.. NO TIME FOR HUMBUG. The girl who has the patienco to perfect lierself in some work — typing, beauty culture, massage, journalisin, uursing. Karitane work, painting, chiropod^, or the other professions women can oxcel in— may; work way ,

about the world and have a most interesting life. A Hawko 's Bay girl who was enterprising and capable givos ideas on this subject which may tnfluence others to strike out for thernselves. She says: — 4 ' If you have a prof ession which will ensnre you a job — that is, if you happen to be a good teacher or a trained nurae or even a Karitane-trained nurse — then I urge you to do all you can to exehange teaching billets or seek in your own 6phere fresh fields for work and travel. The change of cpuntry is a better education than those who stay at home can realise. 1 1 Given the wits to select suitable transport one can nowadays travel luxuriously at low rates. I had always associated third-class on a ship with immigrants, the smell of cabbage, and inf erior sleeping quarters. • But thero was I on the super liner, Queen Mary, third class with 368 others, and more comfortable than on many boats in first class. Travellers are nowadays catered for and encouraged, and cheap tours are arranged all over the world. "I think you might like to hear about my trip from New York on the QueenMary, third class, for nearly all the stories about this ship have been by first class passengers. "It was her firet voyage, in late February, after being in dock for over* haul, and on the morning that we left New York we were due to sail at 10 a.m. and were allowed on' board at 7 a.m. So I was up with the birds 'so that I could satisfy my native curiosity and look around the ship before we started. It was a very cold day, but the ship looked beautiful as it lay berthed with 1000 passengers and their luggage and friends pouring on boarcl. I saw among the crowd Jascha Heifitz, the' great violinistj Charles Laughton, the film star, and his wif e Evelyn Laye, and caught a glimpse of Edmund Lowe, the English actor. "To see the first class cost me nothing, and what struck me most was the dreaih of a swimming pool, and the magnificent wood-work and wood-cuts over the v?alls. Second-class folk seemed mostiy to be wealthy Jews.That part of the boat over the stern-is the oue fault with the ship as tho vibration there is terrific and sevoral third-class passengers who went down there to see it after we were going were promptly sick. "Now hear what can be had through travelling iu the humble third. I will first give you one of our third-class dinner menu cards with its eilver gilding and gorgeous reproduction of a coloured marquetry panel on it. It is funny how we all like to look at a menu! "Get Together Dinner" it is called; Bismark Herrings, Salade Frankfurt, Croutes Yarmouth^ Luncheon Sausage. Consomme Yermicelli, Cremo St. Louis. Salmon poche, Parsley Sauce. Croustade Tallyrande. Roast quarters of lamb and mint sauce. Green peas saute' au beurro. Boiled and roast potatoes. Roast Philadelphia Ghichen Chipolata. Cold: Roast beef with horse radisft sauce. Bologna and liver sausage. Rolled ox tongue. Orleans pudding. Fancy Pastry. Icacream and wafers. Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Colfee. Passengers on special diet are requested to make their arrangements known to' the chief third-class steward. We fared very 'well as you see. The lounges aiid smoke-rooms were spacious and beautifully furnished, third class, and I had an excellent cabin just near the first class. It •pras a rough cxossing, but I was not sick. Queen Mary or not I was delighted to set foot in dear old England. And now I am going to see this country where the soft tones of the English voices strike one so pleaisantly after two years in America. New Zealand girls, do save your fare and come over the world too. There is only one drawback to our conservative. beloved England, from my point ■'view and that of thousands more, and that is the cold. After years of living In countries where central heating is a matter of course, we shiver here, and I have dragged to the light o'f day woollen garments that I have never worn since I left New Zealand! * a « Any other travel hints that readefls can send for this column will sureiy hlelp someone who has the urge to see more of the world. "Save your pennies and go too is the cry of so many who have left New Zealand for a trip across the world. Address your letters on any subject of interest to