QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4533, 28 February 1923, Page 3

QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

fathers. (By Septimus,) I could never understand fathers. I’ve watched ’em—proud fathers (pushing prams), w v orn out, henpecked fathers,, and City Fathers. To me they are all much alike. The proud father is usually foolishly happy, ad as blind as a bat. His offspring, or son and heir, or encumbrance, or whatever you choose to call the occupant of the pram, is always a marvel —just like its father. Of course, that’s very logical, because fathers are always very wonderful men, even if they booze, spend all their evenings at the club, and flirt with other men’s, wives. Man is a noble animal —noble, unselfish, affectionate. They have but a single thought—the happiness and welfare of their wives and children. If they had any other idea 'in their heads it wouTd die of loneliness. The worn out, henpecked fathers may differ somewhat. You see, they should never have become fathers. Their judgment was unsound from the start, and some Eve, whose sole object of life was to hold the tiller of a matrimonial Blip, got them in !a weak moment. Probably such fathers never had, and never will' have, strong moments. They also become proud fathers, being related to the first-mentioned. Now, City Fathers are different. They have the mass behind them—and their wives are not present. -These are proud, fathers in a different sense. Instead' of patting the baby they pat themselves on the back for the things they haven’t done and never will do. I’ve beard ’em called municipal vampires. In fact, somewhere in the darkened corridoi s of memory I recollect a short poem by Kip somebody. It ran like this : An elector there was j < And he voted square , For a man he thought he’d like to put there; Men called him the man who used his vote, But the fool would have done better to put ten bob on the tote. (Even as you and 11. There’s something missing, I know —something about a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair—but that’s immaterial. City Fathers "are not really the fathers of anything—not in a public sense. ' Their pride arises from a ■thorough knowledge of their own broadmindedness and wide experience of the things that matter. They can fill a position with a vacant mind. For instance. If Chug Tin Ford, who seljs oranges to Honk Honk at the corner of Tin-past-tin Street, became a -C.F. he would immediately criticise the engineer, Town Clerk, and, in fact’, everybody. Shouldn’t that make a man proud. Proud fathers are an asset and liability combined — a sort of conglomeration of insolvency —and should be referred to the Official Assignee for examination. The first are proud because —well, just because ; the second are proud in the street because they never count in the home; and the last are proud because they are, of the selected few. If j -• then you will be a man, my son ”