Afterthoughts of a Dud Debater

1. Sex Debate : That women can get the better of men in any circumstances.

In the great words of someone at the back of the hall, woman came after man and she has been after him ever since. In other words she has him on the run.

When necessary, however, she can show him a clean pair of heels. Nay more, if one can believe the stocking advertisements.

It is in these incidentals of her attire that woman's victory lies, and lies and lies. A poem written in the days before the Rudyard ceased from Kipling started off somewhat like this:

"A woman there was and she wore a hat (Even as you or I.)
The crown was low and the brim was flat, 'Twas covered with onions and things like that
And on top perched a vampire bat (With a button for its eye.)

We do not see hats like that nowadays. The vampire is kept strictly under the hat. But the point to be made is that it is a great victory for women to have the things they wear on their heads called hats.

Can anyone doubt that woman is queen of the earth when she is seen striding up and down a public-beach attired in something that looks like a cross between a postage stamp and a pair of bootlaces ? Her manner says, look at me. But who dares, remembering what happened to the poor chap that stared at Lady Godiva when she appeared in the medieval equivalent of the modern bathing costume, still a lot of sheep about.

An illustration from the Great War: The troops feared most by the enemy were the Highlanders. Why? Because their garments were feminine.

One of the speakers said there were more women than men. The New Zealand Year Book shows the contrary. This is not wholly Cow Country. Judging from the voting on certain resolutions at the Annual Meeting of the Debating Society, there are still a lot of sheep about.

The last word on the subject of this debate was written by Mark Twain. At the close of the "Diary of Adam," he depicts Adam, a grizzled old man, sitting disconsolately by the grave of Eve and saying. "Wherever she was, there was Eden."

Could Eve have said that of Adam ? No. She might rather have said, "He was the only man in the world for me, but gosh! he did raise Cain!"