Of Interest to Women.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 16, 2 July 1920, Page 12

Of Interest to Women.

UNT1DINESS: A COMPi*AB£&: Ours is on untidy civilisation. For the matter oi that,. mankind is an untidy race. The "first cave man protaaly left the bones of his dinner lying round the door of tne cave. Perhaps his wife gathered them upon the day when, according to Kipling, she put a mat at the door and said : "Now wipe your f.eet dear, before»you come in." N ature is untidy too, but in a different way, a way that dispfnses with the need of kindness. The fallen leaves of autumn rot into the soil, and the spring verdure covers them and feeds upon them. The fallen trunk of some forest ' patriarch, brok^n under the weight of years, is clothed upon with soft mosses and ferns, and out of death come life and beauty. The method resembles perhaps that- of the savage who puts 011 a fresh coat of oil for a festival, or the old English housewife who puts a fresh layer of rushes on the floor when the last lot ha'd decayed. But its results are different, for with ali her profusion Nature is the most careful of economists, she wastes nothing; and with all her untidiness she is the great beautifter whose methods we are always trying fco copy. Mah, liowever, would be liopelessly untidy if it weren't for woman. Through all the ages she hafe had to toil after «him tidying up the bones and litter of his wars and his huntings, and his buildhxgs and im-buildings. Is there, for' instance, a mere untidy creature in this world than a carpenter? Yes, there is the bricklayer, and the man who puts down the concrete paths. After they have done their worst the prospective householder sends his wife or "gets a woman in" to scruo' the floors, and tidy up. ''111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey" then, wliere the women are untidy as well as the men. I doir't mean, by the way, that all men are untidy. No general statement is without exception ; and there are some few "bright, particular stars" in whom a tidy nature shines through despite the bad training most' hoys receive in this particular ; for the women seem in the past rather tb have gloried in the task of tidying-up than to have made any attempt to correct the bad habits of man. But these tidy men are the exception, emphatically ; the last incarnation. — How do - you tliink they would like the idea ? Now, to come to the point we really have at heart, have you ever taken a tou-r round Invercargill for the purpose of ooserving the homes of the people? ' Have you ever gone over to Otatara, not merely to boil the billy, but to look at the landscape? Have you ever used your eyes while in the country generally? And if so, can you conscientiously say, "Yes," to the question. "Are we a tidy people?" And by the way, have you ever walked through Dee street on Sunday moming, or cast a glance at the floor of a theatre (picture or otherwise), after the people had left. We throw bits of paper, lolly bags and boxes, parings of fruit, and all manner of such unsightly rubbish on the streets for some one else to sweep up ; and if we go for a picnic up the Waihopai, we leave the lunch papers and apple cores behind us on the gyass. Now, Nature, given time, can do something with the apple-cores; but the paper being a manmade article bothers her a ,good deal. The most she can do is to get the wind to gather it into. a corner in the hope that in time the rain will wash it away: and a modern newspaper is too tough for that, . even when the sou'-wester does its best. The peculiar stage at present being passed through in the development of the country no doubt accounts largely for the dismal aspect of a c'ountry-side where gaunt dead trees and prostrate logs and chopped-off stumps disfigure the sky-line on all sides. But why are the fences so often tumbling over, and the gates off their hinges, or hitched up with a bit of barbed wire ? And do all1 Southland farmers leave their ploughs, etc., standing in the fields? And why do country people rarely or never have a decent garden? They have manure at hand, they could have kept enough of the bush to give shelter, they could make time to work it — when there' s a will there' s a way— but you generally see their houses planted out in a bare wind swept paddock with no vegetation uear-by, except a few cahbages struggling with the tliistles. Here again, of course there are honourahle exceptions — I speak ©f the general rule. As for the men and youths who go rabbiting in the countiy, their untidness is shooking to every well-ordered mind. They leave the entrails and bodies of rabbits all over the place. I suppose they say jauntily, "Oh, the hawks will get them'.' There is hardly a straw to draw between town and country either. j.umbleiown fences, dilapidated gates, long, rank,

ragged grass, unkempt hedges, and weedy yards (if an empty tin or can be added so much the better), indicate the degree of interest taken hy many so-called "working men" in the immediate surroundings of their homes, and sbmetimes crooked blinds, and dingy screens held up by tapes with a dolorous droop in the middle, testify to the perverted nature of the housewife indoors. And the Borough . leads the way or shows the example, by the w§y in which it keeps the street s. Perhaps it can't get its employees to realise what tidiness really means. The first step in "town-planning" or tpwn beautifying here will need tb be training in orderliness, and legislation to deal with the man who won't keep his garden decent. ' .