Feminine Interests

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 626, 1 April 1929, Page 5

Feminine Interests

Girls, Cute or Shy?

The Modern Miss and Her Stay-At-Home Sister WHICH MAKES THE BEST WIFE?

THE stay-at-liorue girl is allowed to stay at home while her menfolk go out and enjoy themselves.” “The modern girl says, ‘l’m coming along to join the party.” “Which do you prefer !” Irene Homer, the young American actress who plays the homey Cinderella part in “The Patsy,” which opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday evening, says she is often drawn into discussions on the virtues and merits of these two types. “Men usually tell me they prefer the old-fashioned girl with her shy blue eyes and liair to her waist (in theory),”

says Miss Homer, “but I believe it is only a pipe dream.”

Freedom, freedom, freedom! That is the cry of the age. That is the trumpet call of modern girl. “Give us freedom, freedom, freedom, for -when we have freedom we no longer have any fear/’ She is right, that modern girl, says Miss Homer. What we know about we are not afraid of. When life no longer holds mysteries it no longer holds terror. Once it was only the men who knew things. Personally, I believe that now that we women know all the things that men know we are much better equipped to make a suc-

cess of life. Of course, it is quite true that doI mesticity has gone to the dogs—for | the time being. There are so few real old-world homes, and nobody seems to ! want them very much. Though the [ world is mighty frivolous just now, ! that is only a phase, and I’m sure there will be a finer adjustment pretty ■ soon. I had better confess right away ! that my philosophy is:— “God’s in His Heaven, “All’s right with the world.” I take the bright view of humanity, j And, regarding this lack of domestic- | ity, l am going to stick up for the modern girl, with her cocktail drinking and her latchkey and her easy-going ways. She is the product of her home. She is simply the expression of what her home influence has been. Don’t forget that while the modern flapper has got her freedom, so has her mother. The elder folks have come in fur that wave of freedom just the same as the younger. My own mother, for instance, might be my sister, and the affiliation between us is almost as ihough she were. Too often this is forgotten, and the older people too often criticise their children for the very thing that they themselves are I enjoying. Mind, I am all on the side I of the freedom for mothers as well as daughters, and for grandmothers, too, I if they feel that way about it. Now,

don't forget, when you criticise the modern girl for her modernity, don't blame her —blame her mother. The girl who goes out into the big arena and meets life on au equality ■with men—meets it with equal knowledge, shall I say?—is much better fitted to be a man’s helpmate when she comes to be his wife. If she has been the crazy, go-the-pace sort, why, then she will he so much the more sympathetic when she comes to have daughters of her own. She will remember and understand. THE SAME SINCE EVE I maintain that fundamentally women are the same, and have been the same from Eve, and will he until there aren’t any more apples in the orchard. If some of them sometimes go a little crazy if the sunshine of the open World that is theirs to-day, and the wine of freedom has gone into their heads and made them a little reckless, I think that every one of us some time in our life gets a jolt, and then we start to think and sort up our values. It may he before we are married, or it may be afterwards; but I am sure that little jolt comes to us all. . If she has any mentality at all, any sense of economics, the modern girl can pull all the plums out of the pudding. She knows what she is up against with her man if he is "grouchy.” She knows the hard knocks that he has to take in 'his business, she knows tli" little frets and worries of his daily life in that big world that was a closed book to the oldfashioned homey girl, and with this knowledge she is in possession of a much finer equipment to make the home happy than the girl of yesterday. In every woman of every class of every age of every period there is the maternal instinct —either for the man or the child. Fundamentally that never altex’s in the best or worst of us. We all have it, and it is the actual Iramework on which; we built our homes. When that homing instinct comes up strong in her, she finds her Adam, and says—well, we all have our own methods of saying it, and the formula varies according

to type—but she says something after the fashion of Pat in “The Patsy”: “Come, Adam, tell me about that private little dream at the back of your head about a dear little cottage covered with creepers, hidden away in the trees, with the morning sunshine peeping through the breakfast room window, and a pretty girl across the breakfast table pouring out your morning coffee! Wouldn’t I do that for that pretty girl? Gee, Adam, but it’s a wonderful dream!” ADAM IS AN ANGEL Adam is always a perfect angel if you put it that way to him. Every Adam at heart wants a home, and harbours a dream like that. Tn America the old-fashioned home girl is so obsolete that you only find her in the South. There, truly, the traditions of the old families die hard, and the Southern girls have moved more slowly toward this freedom which the rest of us find so essential. They still express in their ways and their personalities what is given to them through their home as we others express what is being passed on to us by our mothers —our very modern mothers, who. you’d better believe it, are enjoying themselves as they never knew how to in their youth.

I suppose there were always useless woman, and there always will be. But more will be useless through ignorance, and through being too sheltered, than through having unlimited liberty. I know that in the minds of many men the old-fashioned girl still wears that wonderful halo that only the long-haired can carry with comfort. Their dream girls are those shy, timid little mortals who scream at mice, and have to get their menfolks

consult a timetable for them every time they go to call on Aunt Hannah. They are picturesque little beings, no doubt, but not half so serviceable as my modern young friends. The oldfashioned girl was not adaptable. She was “set” in her ideas. She had a strain of tyranny in her, a kind of ruthless rule behind her gentle manner. I haven’t much time for her. She had a narrow outlook, and she expected everyone to see the world through her periscope. She looked very sweet, but she could be very cruel, and the menfolk were often afraid to discuss things that mattered deeply to them with her, because they were afraid she would not understand, and certainly she would not sympathise. These men can’t have it both ways. We can’t be broadminded and old-fashioned too! There are some vapid units among the short-haired sisterhood, but these had, and still have, their counterparts in the thinning ranks of the simple Sarahs of yesterday. If I were a man 1 know I should say: “Give me the woman of to-day. Her idiom is my idiom, and after all, it is an enormous comfort to live with someone who talks the same language. She has neither tangles in her hair nor in her mind. She’ll do for me!”

When frying, invert a colander over the pan. This prevents splashing and is easily removed, as the base of the colander does not become hot.

To keep the fur of Persian or other long-haired cats in good condition use a fine-tooth comb instead of a brush. Fleas are eliminated, and the fur rendered thick and glossy.

LEARNING TO LOVE BOOKS

By ELIZABETH FLEUR. Children do not naturally take care of their books, bdt even the littlest one can be taught that books are friends worth prizing. Nor is this a difficult task, if it is approached in the right fashion. Baby tears a book or a paper chiefly because he likes the sound of tearing, but he will cease if the book is introduced as a precious thing, looked at with mother or nurse for a short time, then put away in a bookcase until another day. It is bettes to keep the very first nursery books in an ordinary bookcase in the drawing room or library, then, as soon as the lesson has been learned, the nursery bookcase, with its key, will be a welcome arrival in the small people’s domain. To add to the importance of books, mother or nurse could act as librarian, jotting down in a little notebook the books required by the children, and indicating in the margin when they we’*e taken out and returned. It is not until a child reaches the age of seven or eight that Ke is eutertained for long by a book. Unless steps are taken to avoid it, therefore, the nursery or schoolroom is apt soon to be littered with an untidy mass of discarded volumes, with broken backs and torn pages. Quite small children enjoy making paper covers for their books, and indeed the process might easily be included in the kindergarten lesson. When they reach the stage of lending books to their little friends, paper covers should be put. on before they are allowed to leave the house. The same care should be extended to books that are borrowed. It is necessary, too, that children be taught to keep a record of the books lent to friends, so that prized birthday presents and Christmas gifts can be easily traced. Proper care of books should begin with the first child of the family, because a good habit is passed as easily from one child to another as a bad Gne, and nothing is more quickly imitated by the younger members than an older child’s pride in certain achievements.

LARDER HYGIENE SIMPLE BUT EFFICIENT FOODTESTS If you put a clean shilling in the pot when cooking mushrooms, and the silver becomes in the least discoloured, the mushrooms are not? fit to eat. Butter bubbles up and burns when heated; margarine boils gaily. Pure sugar, when burnt in an iron ladle, will leave no ash. • * * Good tea burns with a very blue liame. The purity of milk can be tested with a steel knitting needle. If the liquid runs off the needle quickly, leaving it bright, you may be sure water has been added. Pure milk will cling to the needle, dropping off slowly. To test flour, warm it for an hour and pass it through a sieve on to a dry plate. Good flour will not become lumpy. Fresh eggs, when held in front of an artificial light, will appear perfectly clear. If there is a black spot attached to the shell, the egg is bad. Nutmegs should be firm, hard, nearly round; and, when cut across, full of dark veins. Cinnamon should be of a bright tan colour, rolled many times and not much thicker than paper when unrolled. * Macaroni, when good, breaks crisply.