The Daily News THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1913. THE DAILY ROUND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 238, 27 February 1913, Page 4

The Daily News THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1913. THE DAILY ROUND.

Life is proverbially not all "beer and skittle*." and indeed, probably tin; curt epitome ot lluckleback. "Cuess we're only born in order to get ready to die." is as good a condensation of existence in wonls a- can lie obtained. \\ ith tile .show in progress we have all sorts and conditions of men gathered together in one delightful gregarious whole. What a lot of daily rounds they represent, ami how varied in character! Could their personal experiences ■be put oil paper they would surely make a volume of an intensely human character. Something of the sort was recently attempted at Home by "Vance." of the Referee, who invited readers from all parts o! the globe to set down their personal stories ol a working day. The response was distinctly interesting. Discussing Ihe subsequent book, the Sppctator says that the thing which strikes the reader most forcibly about these papers as a whole i> (hat (here is aI-

most 110 mention of money in them. The \ stoker on the locomotive complains of his wages. One or two emigrants re- | gret the money spent oil their public school education—a "country gentleman expresses some contempt for the newly-rich, hut no greed, no envy, and no bitterness on the subject of money is to be found throughout llie volume. Some men love their work, and a few men hate it: of what they mala- by their toil they say next lo nothing. The omission is very remarkable. They are all making their livings, and they speak only of their lives. Thcv almost all tell their readers whether or not their

work makes them happy. So far as one can see, after reading their generally rather bald confessions of how they spend their time, tuey arc seeking happiness, not gain. None of thein is exactly rich, and none very poor. Is that why they do not think about money? Two city clerks describe each his own day. One gives a dull account of "a dog's life"; for the other every item of his work, every moment of his leisure, teems with interest and pleasure. An hour's waiting at the law courts sets him off on any number of amusing trains of thought. The humor of the judge and the humors of the crowd alike ertertain him, and music, which is his beloved hobby, leaves no moment of his oti'-time heavy on his hands. The dress : maker's assistant, again, hotly repudiates the notion that her work is dull. True, her day is long. She stitches, with intervals, from nine in the morning to eight at night. A train journey at each end of the day makes her free time still shorter. Nevertheless, she believes

few rich women enjoy life'a* .much as dke does. She reads in the train, and never wishes the time away. At her <>rk her companions amuse lier; the changes in fashion interest her. She watches the customers with pleasure, divides the "nice" ones from the exacting ones, and notes that every year more husbands come with their wives to choose dresses, notes also thai the men wish the dresses to be becoming, and the women desire to follow (he fashions. Even at home the tyranny of the needle is not over. Friends drop in of an evening who are glad of her skill in helping them to make their clothes. Compulsory learning has leavened ignorance to a far greater extent than the railer at primary education would have us believe. The girls in a West Enii dressmaker's shop are not all emptyheaded. "During our spare moments all sorts of topical subjects are discussed quite seriously: women's suffrage, Lloyd Oeorge, strikes. Christian science, etc. So you see that though we are shut up for so many hours in the workroom we don't get entirely out of touch with or lose interest in the. things that are happening in the world." There is only one account in the whole book of the day of an ordinary hard-working married woman. She belongs to a class which is able to keep one evidently inferior servant. At the time she writes she has a siek child to nurse, and the day she describes is Sunday, when the servant is out. She works hard for her children, and when one of them is ill she is, no doubt, overworked, but she is entirely devoted to them, and does not complain at all. She relates rather hadlv, and there is little of interest to be got from her short story. One realises that she is rather afraid of her husband, who fulminates against "rich and grand" people—and rather afraid of her maid. She and her husband practise small economies in secret lest the servant should gossip to the neighbors of the simplicity of their way of life. Then there is the story •of the veldt farmer. "At the present moment," ho writes, "T am reaping the record wheat crop. As early as 4 a.m. lam in the lands stacking the hundreds of bundles of wheat that were reaped on the previous day. stacking (hem against time

and before the sun gets on them to make them dry and hittle. lam supervising a dozen reapers, women as well as men. who through the long, hot day reap the crop at ilic rate of two shillings per one hundred bundles, each bundle being nine inches or a foot iri diameter where tied in the middle. At sundown each reaper gets his ration of niea'ie meal, and some a handful of tobacco in addition.'' lie tries to draw a picture which shall convey to liis renders the fascination of the place. Here, he says, is "life as life, in my opinion, •'t'.iiM Oflr;!. it is I he is a

week, sometimes a month, without seeing a white face. What matter? He sees crops where nothing grew; water where all was dust; a land of plenty of his own creating. These are probably only duplications in a more or less varied form of life in our own midst, but they certainly throw interesting sidelights on life and the methods of living.