Citizens Say—

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 154, 20 September 1927, Page 10

Citizens Say —

(To the Editor.)

COMPLEXIONS OUT OF DATE Sir,— From the correspondence column of THE SUN I learn with surprise that there are people so old-fashioned as to be concerned about the effects of too much tea drinking on the complexions of typistes. These kindly but benighted souls should know by now that the average typiste from the time she rises in the morning to remove her clothes preparatory to proceeding to the office, until she dresses to go to bed at night, never gives her complexion or the lack of it a thought. She doesn’t have to; so why should she? Compelxions are out of date, Victorian. The really smart, up-to-the-minute typiste prefers the complexion which unlike poets, is not born but made—at the chemist’s. So why Worry? STINGO. FARMERS AND WORK Sir,— Anti-Whine’s remarks about farmers are not a bit too strong. Contact with farmers in different parts of the Empire causes me to believe that collectively they are a calamity-howling lot. Pampered by the Government and cajoled by political vote-catchers, the New Zealand farmer has been encouraged to persist as a chronic grumbler and apostle of woe. He never tires of telling all and sundry that he works hard 16 hours a day, seven days a week, year in, year out. The farmer here has made this boast so long and often that he has really come to believe it. And a lot of the people he tells it to know so little about work that they believe it too. I have laboured in stokeholds, worked with pick and shovel and swung an axe in the bush, but not for 16 hours a day or anything like it. I couldn’t do it, nor have I ever known or heard of a man who could. The fact is the farmer, like a lot of others, is very careless with his use of the word “work.” No doubt the farmer, like the housewife who complains her work is never done, is always “on the go” but also like the housewife he takes an awful lot of time off. GRAFT. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Sir, I read with interest an article in Saturdays SUN on “Correct Speakmg. and would take the liberty of adding to Mr. Alexander Watson’s remarks regarding speech in New Zeala£9- ° ur mother tongue is now sadly aftlicted with “Nasal Americanism,” and it is regrettable that we cannot stamp out this corruption of the beautiful language that Milton and Shake speare wrote. We occasionally meet people who can, and do, speak English, but they are in the minoritv, and will soon be very hard to find, as our children are growing up without any effort being made to combat this scourge which grips the younger generation so readily. It is, therefore, very srur-pri&ißg to -find -an American diot-iog-.

ary being sold in Auckland under the title, “New Universities Dictionary,” at a figure which would prove very attractive to the school boy or girl whose book account must necessarily be carefully wa.tched, and to whom the American product, with its colloquialisms would prove of greater interest than would Webster or Ogilvie. It is doubtless interesting to learn that a place of low resort is a “joint,” that refreshment served there is “tanglefoot,” and tiiat a ’ jiffy” is quite acceptable as a substitute for ’’instant,” while time is so precious in the “Land of Hustle,” that it is not worth while giving the accents to those words we have borrowed from our French cousins, but surely a wholesome English tongue is worth more than the few pounds to be derived from the pollution of it. May 1 ask through your columns if such a dictionary is permitted in our schools? —FREDERICK EDWARDS. TiEA—ANOTHER GIRL Sir,— On the face of it, “Trilby’ Teacup’s” letter should have given me the quietus, but, analysed, her reply is girl-like and unconvincing She seeks to evade an uncomfortable truth by trying to throw tea-dust in my eyes. “Trilby” unwittingly makes an admission when she imputes to me the phrase “sinful partiality to tea drinking.” Whence the sinful Certainly not my word expressed or implied. Foolish, yes’ but never sinful. Perhaps she scalded her tongue with hot tea when she penned her reply. in answer to her thrust about “brothers and beer ” I must say that I have been able to divert several straying feet from hotels to orange drink bars. “Trilby Teacup” quite missed the purpose of mv letter but not so “Auckland Office Girl.” She at least got to the point of the discussion which concerns tea and its effect upon complexions, and not whether over-mdulgence is sinful. Still lam a little pained that your fair correspondent No. 2 should accuse me, a rabid T.T., of “slipping out for a glass of beer. in any case, I’ve never had a complexion to guard. Sir, my net has caught two pretty butterflies. I wonder are there any more? JUNIOR PARTNER. BOOKS AND SPRING CLEANING Sir, With the coming of more settled weather housewifes will be going in for the annual spring cleaning, and my committee craves the courtesy of a little space in your columns to appeal for literature which may be no longer needed. In addition to the ordinary reading matter, we have some very pathetic appeals from the backblocks for medical works suitable for the instruction of housewives, and also for books on the care and nursing of babies, dressmaking, gardening and poultry-raising, and we shall esteem it a favour if the more privileged city dwellers can help us in this direction. further appeal on behalf of native children in the Cook Islands is made for pieces of material, coloured cottons, wool, etc., suitable for teaching the children sewing. Almost any XciH: '€k£ A -|it 4s a -great l-oon -to -the,

schoolmasters to receive email pan*-' especially as it helps to tide over 5 very desolate hurricane season or djmonths, which is now fast appro®'"' ing—when there is nc g with the outside world. All contributions will be gladly ceived, addressed Town Hall. .. —ALICE H. G. BASTEy Hon. Sec. Mayoress* Memorial Lea gue. MONKEYS FOR RESEARCH WOtf Surely we are an inconsistent t fcr while we utilise the best®*"* v I equipment of cur public nofP . I cure the broken limb of one ** , I fering monkey, on the other allow, with hardly a protest ment of monkeys to be landed the purpose of research wort -wggre Is the time not due when we fuse to participate in any r ®e , suffering at the expense of su any of God’s creatures? For d are our younger brothers. - done to any of them must r - - all. I would like to ask bo mothers of Auckland: par= spend an hour at our z P° i i* t he with your children, watching of the monkeys, a:r?d then # these little ones ol tend®* -;ci** { suffering we allow to be . f -*&&& such as they in the najj^ NOTICES TO CORRESPOND A iti - Swank.—When * e J% eotfu H names and addresses ol ° pendents it is not ■ f °£, Sjr*»S purposes, but so that PC 1 * 1 * for cur own information» tion, from whom