PUNCTUALITY. {John Bull.)

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 411, 2 January 1875, Page 2

PUNCTUALITY. {John Bull.)

"La Pondualite c'esi la Polittsse dcs Rois" is an old axiom, and one which, it must be confessed, the Kings aud Princes of the earth have laid well to heart. Her Majesty's exactitude as to time is proverbial; and her sons and daughters are little behind her in this respect. We wish the good example set them exercised a more marked effect on Her Majesty ' 3 subjects, and that they would sometimes reflect on the extreme discourtesy which their disregard of it causes them to show to their friends and entertainers. Given any person, man or woman, in even moderately good health, no excuse which can be framed, no matter how ingeniously, can for one moment hold water in excusing chronic unpunctuality. Every one, not afflicted by ilLness, can be punctual if they choose ; it is the will that is wanting, not the power. A. proof of this is that people can always manage to be in time if they are quite certain they cannot get what they want without being so ; it is only when the convenience of others is in question that they give themselves a most irritating latitude. Everyone knows the impossibility of inducing dinner guests to make their appearance within any reasonable period of the time named for their arrival. Let them once be fully aware that, as is the case in one or two — very great houses, no guest, whatever his or her rank (Royalty, of course, excepted), is allowed more than ten minutes' " law," and the most illbred and insouciant dandy, the most feather-brained fine lady who thinks it gives her importance to make everyone else uncomfortable, at once finds it convenient to I arrive punctually to the hour named. As a general J rule it may be assumed that it is only the utterly idle who aie ever late. If a man apologises for his unpunctuality by saying, •' he was so busy," he was leaning over the rails in the Park. People who "U , — "'•■^4l-.i,-,nr vool't- fr» iln arp f\r tnn w««ll qinn of

M'tflbse witlpwhom they come in. contact. It id not they who make an appointment with a busy man at eleven in the morning and saunter in, looking blissfully unaware of their unpunctuality, at half-past twelve. No ; the man who does this has generally been at his wits' end to kill time all the morning ; but he preferred a cigar, or % visit to his stables, and his own pleasure was of far more consequence than a busy man's time; or else he fancied being late made him of some importance. This latter feeling is very frequently indeed at the bottom of feminine want of punctuality. "Oh ! they must wait for a lady," we have heard said, quite gravely, as the reason for a speaker coming in from her drive just |at the hour when, fully dressed, she should have bee,n stepping into her carriage to go out to dinner. It may be thought frivolous to insist so much on this unpunctuality for dinner; but, apart from**' "' annoyance and discomfort it creates, and its exces-, sive bad taste and impertinence, it is only a sign of the general habit of life. Any one habitually and deliberately unpunctual for dinner is tolerably sure to be irregular in all the other events of the day, and, besides, the terrible amount of time wasted, the household conducted on such principles can never be an orderly one. If servants find that masters and mistresses never keep to time, it can hardly be expected that they will be more f particular; there is soon no settled time for anything, and every one does as seems good in their own eyes. To children also unpunctuality is most deleterious, both physically and morally — physically because their juvenile constitutions require stated food at stated hours, and are sorely tried by prolonged waiting; morally, because it requires infinitely more mental ballast than, they can be expected to possess to keep steady to work when they never know exactly when it will be called for. . Perhaps there is nothing so profoundly irritatng to an unpunctual person, who more frequently than not keeps up the farce of professing to believe that he or she is the most punctual of mortals excopt on the one occasion in question, as to come down in a storm of apologies, " Oh, dear ! I hope I'm not l;ito," &c., and to find the person kept waiting, dressed and ready, and employed calmly with book or work, as One used to waiting. "You need hardly have settled yourself; you knew I should not be a minute," says the delinquent, with an injured air, blithely ignoring the fact that the horses have been fretting at the door half an hour by the clock. This is a common phase, but others take a more plaintive line " How I envy you always being in time? I couldn't be punctual if I tried. I never had any idea of time." Now this is sheer and arrant nonsense, and as such should be instantly and uncompromisingly snubbed by *° whom it is addressed. Every one caß,^HKft time if they choose ; and even those unpropßd j^ith watches might, if they gave .their minds *to if?, make such use of neighbouring clocks <ajt JA.J"«t - feft«twim£rove^e3,tlj_on. tkeir present bad habits. But that would involve trouble and thought for others, and they are of all things the that repugnant to the soul of the unpunctual. is their idol, and not all the professions of penitence which they from time to time think it expedient to make imply the faintest intention of abandoning its worship. A. very great •deal may be done by parents in nipping the vice in tfee bud. When offender discovers that he /^CIT Bhgjj&jieyer wa.ited.jflr, tint* -everything "goeTon as usual, that on appearing late at a meal no dish is ever recalled, but that he must take his chance of what happens to be left, that parties of pleasure t start at the appointed time, irrespective of his appearance or the reverse, he will begin to discover that it is as wall to form habits cf punctuality, and, once formed, they are hard to break. We only wish we could venture to hope that the world would follow the same plan, and utterly disregard the comfort of those whose vanity, impertinence, and bad taste lead them to keep others waiting for no object but their own selfish gratification ; but J we fear that so-called " good-nature " is too strong for our hopes to be realized. The world seems to forget that in being " good-natured " to the offender it is thoughtless of the sufferers.