Something to Be Thankful For

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 16, 9 April 1927, Page 20

Something to Be Thankful For

Like the parson in tne picture, we all have something to be thankful for. For although it’s never so good that it mightn’t be better, it’s never so bad that it mightn’t be more so. You hear of people referring, pityingly, to others who “lead dogs’ lives.” Judging by some of the fat poodles we see in the motors and drawingrooms of the dog adorers, those who lead dogs’ lives have much to be thankful for. Popularly, a dog is supposed to be kicked from back to front, and front to back again, starved, and despised. Nothing is more contrary to fact. The dogs of to-day are fed better than most children, and, where they are not housed in costly little castles, they sleep on real beds —sometimes with their masters and their mistresses. The only people who are not properly impressed with the rights and

status of dogs are city councillors. They passed a by-law ordering dogowners to keep their dogs on chains. There was such a howl of protest from dog adorers that the by-law was declared only a joke and not enforce able, and Towser now tears about the streets just as before, getting in the way of cars, tearing the trousers of motor-cyclists, and leaping up at the heads of horses in the same delightful way as his father did before him. Dog’s life, indeed! You remember Tom Dawson, the comedian. Tom used to sing a little song about being smashed up on a bike, but—- “ The woman in front was my mother-in-law; She fell down and broke her jaw— So I’ve got something to be thankful for,” sang Tom. Some people have even more to be thankful for. They haven’t got mothers-in-law at all. Let every man select his wife from an orphanage, and he will have much to be thankful for. Poor Tom Dawson! He received his orders for eternity somewhere in France. As he lay dying, he was asked how he felt. “ I’d rather have a hardboiled egg,” said Tom, gasping out a line of another favourite comic song he used to sing. He asked for a cigar-

ette, and, having “ lit up,” observed that it was “ something to be thankful for.” Doubtless Tom found “ something to be thankful for ” in “ that bourne whence no traveller returns.” No people are so boring as those who are eternally complaining of their poverty. Rich people are always worried about their money, either trying to make more or struggling to hold on to what they have got. Think of the agonies of mind they endure signing cheques. Besides, did you ever know a millionaire who wasn’t eternally figuring as defendant in a suit for damages, a divorce case with damages and alimony, and both, or an action for bregch of promise? People who aren’t millionaires have something to be thankful for. If you owe a lot of money and you have money, you have to pay that money. If you have no money and owe a lot of money, you can go bankrupt. That’s something to be thankful for. If you get a pain in the interior and

have to go to the hospital and get your appendix cut out to have proved to the satisfaction of your surgeon that it wasn’t appendicitis at all, you still have something to be thankful for. You may at least be sure that if you didn’t have appendicitis, you never will have. Guinea pigs are experimented on by surgeons—operation after operation, until all that is left is their squeals, which are sold for penny whistles. You’re not a guinea-pig. That’s something to be thankful for. Take the case of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. She had so many children that she didn’t know what to do. Therefore, she did nothing. Wasn’t that something to be thankful for? Any number of people nowadays would be glad of an excuse to have nothing to do. Nothing to be thankful for? Well, if that’s the case, be thankful for that, for it saves you the trouble of thanking anybody—and that’s something to be thankful for, anyway. You can’t get away from it! —F.U;