THE DOOR THAT ISN’T LOCKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 134, 27 August 1927, Page 20

THE DOOR THAT ISN’T LOCKED

Houdini, “the handcuff king,” whose escapes from locked trunks and strait jackets; have mystified people all over the world, has said that the hardest task of his career was to break out of a cell, the door of which was not even locked (writes Sylvia Drury). He worked away at the lock for hours; then he happened to turn the knob, the door opened, he was free. The moral seems almost too painfully obvious, and yet how many mil- ! lions of female Houdinis are there, locked in by a ceaseless round .of unnecessary worries, household tasks, and unfounded fears, when a little courage and common sense would turn the knob of their prison door and they would be free? “I couldn’t possibly leave the children, the washing, the spring cleaning. George, the marmalade, the new cook.” they wail. crouching behind the bolts and bars of their own making. They are locked in by their own ability to see that they have but to turn the handle to escape, that it is possible to buy perfectly good marmur lade at the grocer’s, that George will probably not evince any suicidal tendencies if they do go away for a week, that the spring cleaning can be accomplished just as effectively next month as this, and that if the cook is going to burn everything to cinders she'll do it with, or without, your helpful presence. There are hundreds of women who cannot rid their minds of the idea that the moment they leave their own four walls the#* entire house will be engulfed in hopeless ruin. They prefer to be hedged in by domesticitties rather than make a bid lor freedom. They sit shivering, locked in with the spectres of “What would happen if George wre run over? How should I manage if I had a nervous breakdown? I wonder if we can possibly afford to send Peter to college? What will happen if Mary falls up the kitchen stairs with the Coalport tea set. So they alternately pick and worry the twin lockis of needless anxiety and baseless fear when, if they would only realise it, the majority of their fetters are of thedr own forging: a littlecourage, and tl*?y would be free. In all probability most of their worries will never c*ome true, and, if thev do, remember that very sound piece of advice: “If tlir wolf is at the door, open it and eat him.”