How Savages Deal With " Bores!"

Manawatu Herald, 5 November 1896, Page 3

How Savages Deal With " Bores ! "

To the current number of the Windsor Magazine Miss O'Conor Eccles contributes a brightly written article on " The Disadvantages of Civilisation." Among the other products of civilisation u " the bore, one of the greatest afflictions that mortals are Qilkd on to endure. The bore, male or female — and to the oredit of my sex, be it Baid, the latter ia less numerous than the former — whether of the egotistical, the pompous, or the übiquitous type, whether silent and heavy, or talkative and frothy, whether interested in politiog, religion or social questions, given merely to the' irritating habit of announcing facts known to everyone, or to convoying an endless stream of dull narrative, is essentially a disadvantage of civilisation. The bore could not exist in a savage socitty. No rude, untut >red tribe, with the elemental passions of our race strong within thorn, would endure the bore for a momsnt. They would risa ns 0113 man and exterminate him, for they have not bien ground between the upper and the neth<r millstone of convention. Uncivilised man \\&s even devistd a way for airos'ing, at hast in one direction, the development of bore?, who are an artificial product, evolved only in a suitable atmosphere. Working by tbe light of reason alone, a simple tribe of negroes, with few want* and fewer ambition- 1 , has hit upon a plan our English Parliament nr'ght adopt with advantage to members, press reporters, and the prrgrrs3 of busi neaa. The decree that wbjn a native council is being he'd, he who has anything worth saying may niter it during the space of time he can stand on one leg. When, through fa'igue, tbo toe of the other foot touches the ground, the flood of oratory is abruptly arrested."