GOSSIP.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 November 1927, Page 1

GOSSIP.

A gossip .... A person, mostly a woman .... (Dictionary definition). If scandal-mongers could realise the possibilities for evil of their casual, malicious gossip; the majority of them would he cured. No doubt quite a number of cures will be effected hv the

accounts of two tragedies, both apparently the direct result of seaiidal-iiion-gering, reported in the newspapers, writes a women correspondent to the “ Daily News.” What is a gossip? It is “ A person, mostly a woman.” according to Alurray’s English Dictionary, “of light and trilling character, especially one who delights in idle talk ; a newsmonger, a tattler.” AA’lmt is seandal-mongeringp

“it is a disease,” said Airs Harris, the chief organiser of the Federation of AVomen’s Institutes, discussing the matter with. mo. AA’liat is the cure?

“ Something to think about.” said the Rev. T. P. Stevens, vicar of St. ATattliew’s Church, New Kent road. “ 1

once said that if a seanda 1-mongor made an appearance in my church I would name her from the pulpit. But, as a fact, there aren’t many gossips down this way. For the cure for the disease is having other things to think about—the supper, the children, the struggle for life. It is among idle people you find scandal-mongering.*'

I tried to discover whether Air Stevens agreed with the dictionary about the natural sex of the gossip. “ There are men scandal-mongers.” lie acceded, with a laugh. “ But, although men talk recklessly their gossip is not so potent nor so venomous as women’s. Alen are even ‘ catty,’ hut their ‘ cattiness ’ is not prompted by jealousy, and therefore does not do the same harm.

“The trouble is that women dislike each other by nature. They do not realise it, and I don’t now why it is; but it is so. They easily suspect each •other, and they are always on guard against each other.”

ilicre is a community on the Duke of Bedford’s estate at AVolmrn Sands, from which Gossip is reported to have fled. For the Duke had houses built without front doors, and it is on front door steps that Gossip thrives. At the back door, the housewife will tell you, she can see too much work crying out to lie done.

Gossip, by tradition, is a native of villages—l suppose because villagers have had fewer liealthly interests than town-dwelelrs. But recently, 1 am assured, Gossip had a thin time in hundreds of villages. “ The work of tbe A’illngo Institute lias killed Gossip,” Airs Harris told me yesterday. “ No sooner is an institute started than a difference is noted,” she declared. “ Not only among the villagers, but among tbe women of a different class wlio live in the ‘ big houses.’ 'J lie villagers have now so many tilings to interest them that here is no time for gossip; while the other women, finding interests in common, discover that their political or religious differences of opinion need not cause them to cut one another in the village street.”