Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 146, 10 September 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

Mundane Musings

Paterfamilias — Deceased!

You may have wanted a child for the greater part of your natural married life, but that is no reason to suppose it is yours when at last you have got it. If you are its mother, no matter how much you have suffered, it is not your possession. Jf you are its father, no matter how many hardships you have encountered, and overcome, it is not your property. This is the new law of parenthood upon which the new family life is to be framed, the new generation is to be brought up—that the child belongs to itself. The paterfamilias is dead, says an English novelist. There is no such gentleman. Actually he died at about the time that Dundreary was combing his whiskers, but his funeral has been a very long procession. I suspected it when, seeing Mary pick up something from the floor and put it in her mouth, I said: “Mary, what have you got in your mouth?” She looked at me with a china-blue eye that said: “Find out!” And when I proceeded to take her advice, she sped down the room on all fours, her head well in the air to make a good streamline —as they say in the motor-boat trade —making a least 20 knots. I have not the faintest idea how jrou calculate the speed of a child on all fours. If you are trying to catch her it is incredible. DANGERS OF THE BATH The other day I was presented with the freedom of bathipg Mary. Lloyd George may have received the freedom of half the cities in the British Isles, lie has.not felt such conspicuous honour as I felt on this occasion. I was determined that from the first I should know the last thing about it. There was to be no hesitation, no fumbling. It was to be a man at the job, displaying all that efficiency irj resource for which men have been noted since Adam. We began excellently. I knew all about those dangers of the slipperiness of a soapy body weighing roughly 241 b, and incapable of supporting itself in a modern enamelled bath. I had kept my ears open, and heard most of the tricks —like swilling the water up and down till it made waves, hunting for the soap with excited cries of “Where’s the soap?” and then an exultant shout

of “Here it is!” I knew about the final ecstacy of letting her pull out the plug and interpreting the gurgles of the water into rhymithical verse with a tune to it, as it ran away, the amount of water that can hide itself in a sponge, and so on. But nothing I could do now would please her. As a last resort I tried parental authority. That seemed to be the crowning insult. I heard footsteps mounting to the bathroom, and knew that the announcemen of my failure was at hand. “What’s happened?” I was asked. “Has she got some soap in her eye?” Soap in her eye! At least I could afford to be sarcastic about that. The eye of the professional surveyed the scene. Mary was sitting in the depths of the bath, with her head turned up to Heaven, uttering - the most heartrending cries. “Where’s Susie?” they asked then. “Who’s Susie?” I asked. THE SECRET Susie was brought at once—a rubber doll, with a face like a flatfish and a green rubber bathing dress that all floated in the water, and could be washed with soap like a human being without losing any of the inane features painted on her face. Immediately there was peace. Susie accomplished that of which I or anyone else was totally incapable. Susie had an inner meaning that I could never hope to possess. She had more significance, more spirituality, than I could ever hope to attain. There was something in Mary’s mind which I could never reach. Susia, a flat-faced rubber doll, could aspire to it. I could not. Susie came from a shop in the world outside. When I thought that, I felt myself getting near to the secret of it. Our children don’t belong to us. They belong to the -world outside. The only way to win them and keep them is to give them that world —it is theirs.

PILLOW LACE The making of pillow lace is an ancient cottage industry of the remote villages of Buckinghamshire. A generation ago most of the women engaged in it to supplement the very small wage then earned by the farm hands, and to-day there are still many of the older women making the lovely lace, says a London writer. For years before compulsory education came into force there were in every village lace schools, where the tiny girls of five years and upwards were taught the art. It is very necessary to learn young, as this is the only way to become a quick worker. The pillow used by the lace-maker is bolster-shaped, tightly stuffed with straw and covered with print, on to which is fastened a parchment with the pattern pricked out and then inked in. The lace is worked with bobbins on to which the lace thread or silk is wound by means of a bobbin-wheel, A large number of bobbins have to be used on each piece of lace, some wide patterns taking from three to five hundred. The bobbins are turned in many fancy shapes, are mostly of wood (some are of bone), dotted and pierced, and at the end of each are fastened about half a dozen fancy beads, which, when used to throw the cotton round the pins, make a pretty, musical sound called a “gingle.” It has been the custom for the ladies of Bucks to present to each royal bride a piece of the work. Queen Victoria, I am told, received a parasol, sections of which were allotted to the required number of the best workers in the district, as the whole thing would have been too lengthy a task for one worker. It was my privilege to visit the cottage and inspect the present given to the Queen of Spain on the occasion of her marriage. It was a fan—a most exquisite thing. The work is very tedious, and it is not unusual to take 12 months to complete one piece of lace. The present workers are mostly old —the younger generation is apparently not eager to take up the work, having, I suppose, quicker ways of earning money. But there has been a movement lately to form a lace-makers’ association in the hope of creating a demand for the lace and thus helping to revive the industry.