THE HORRORS OF THURSDAY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9400, 22 March 1909, Page 2

THE HORRORS OF THURSDAY.

(Christchurch Press). “Let us think, also, of our home life. . . At present, perhaps, two members of the family are home on Thursday, and sthe others ou Satnrday. That means that on those two days their homes are practically broken up. There is no exchange of confidence; no hearing of one another’s burdens. The mother is denied the pleasing spectacle of healthy sons and|b'ooming daughters sitting together at the dinner table. For him (the Thursday man) there are no openings for heroic achievements on the field of mimic warfare. No matter how he yearns for bnrsts of applause from thousands of throats, he must content himself with insignificance. And, assuming he doesn t care for active spor*, why should he be prevented form cycling into the country on Saturday afternoon, and sauntering alongside the brook as it gargles its way to the sea, listening to the sea, listening to the twitter of the birds as they fly'about in their leafy bowers, and contemplating Nature in all her gloiy? He is denied these pleasures at present because of his circumstances. >»__Extract from a now notorious letter in The Press.

It was Thursday ! There was not she slighest doubt about that. Worse than this, it was Thursday afternoon! All Nature whimpered in vague affright as though at the impending of some awful oaotaolysm. The grocer had ceased to groce. The widow’s mite crept furtively: to the damaged gate to meet the broken hearted mother who had been driven from work and was returning to the little' home, bearing her toiLworn fingers, her eyelids heavy and red, and something frugal for lunch. No longer did the butcher butch. There were moans and anguished tears as hopeless shop assistants were torn from their beloved tasks and hurled into outer ’ darkness. Those who could do so, without risk of loss, gnashed their teeth. Th® center refrained to carp. For the pail of Thursday afternoon had settled down upon the affairs of men. The domestic hens poised perilously upon a single stringy leg, moped and swayed uneasily like dingy craft at anchor. No eggs were to be delivered to-day, and so they drowsed impatiently until the morrow, when they might lay-two, or even more. The watchdog yawned vacuously and, totcered to his candle-box, for the bottle-man and the boot-lace pedlar had gone the way of all Thursday flesh and were bitterly awaiting the resurrection of Friday. Mankind thought of its home life and put on eaok-oloth and ashes For the draper had ceased to drape, hamily ties were snapped in the open streets and strong men ruthlessly broke up their homes in the suburbs. One another’s burdens were left to be called tor by their rightful owners. Patient mothers sighed regretfully as fond memory ranged over the unforgettable Mondays. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when their sturdy boys and their bonny girls sanctified the dinner-table by their presence And now Thursday was here, and they were gone—gone afar into the wilderness, starving maybe, and desolated. For this was Thursday, the occasion of fasting and., lation. . A modern Hercules stood forth—a very king among men. But the populace fell upon his Sandowed neck, and cried with a loud voice, “Away with him 1 Let go starboard biceps; unleash his bounding calves, for he would break the Thursday!’’ What then is left? His bicycle will not carry him out into the country, and the country closes at one on Thursday. The rolling green landscape is rolled up, and will not be shaken out again and dusted until Friday. The gurgling brook is taken in out of the wet, and the birds have pnt away their last week’s threadbare twitter in view of the usual change of programme, with a matinee on Saturday. Even the leaves have left leafiness severely alone. Nature has her hair in curlers and a bag apron on, for this is Thnrsady—weepy, washy, wailing Thursday, when life squelches along in a soggy morass of pestifererous nothingness, and when the dank and dismal hours drag their gibbering victims to one common arena set a part for the grisley gambols of the grim and ghastly goblins of despair