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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 4 (August 1, 1928)

Of Feminine Interest

page 55

Of Feminine Interest.

Modes for the Spring.

Spring mornings in the country or town find the smart woman dressed almost in uniform, simple and very suitable. Plaits appear at the sides of the skirt and the blouse of this smart jumper model closes in surplice fashion.

* * *

‘Blue Room” Dance.

A very successful dance (under the name of the Blue Room Dance), was given by several of the young ladies of the staff of Head Office in the Oddfellows’ Hall, on Tuesday, 3rd July. A delightful programme of music was arranged, and a most enjoyable evening was spent by over 200 guests. The hall was tastefully decorated in blue with balloons, streamers and novelty sketches, giving an unusual but pleasing effect. It is hoped that the committee will again have the pleasure of entertaining members of the staff and their friends at another dance to be held in the near future.

* * *

A New Hat.

When nerves get frayed and frazzled, when everything goes topsy-turvy, when if you were living in the old mid-Victorian days you would just go off and have a good cry, that's the time to—

Buy a new hat!

If needn't be an expensive hat, but it ought to be a gay hat—a smart and jaunty hat, a bright and cheerful hat.

For there's nothing that will so quickly restore morale, nothing that will make the whole world sing a new song—no, not even a bequest from an unknown uncle will have the same blithesome effect as a new hat.—“Ladies’ Home Journal.”

* * *

Varying the Breakfast Menu.

Variety is indeed the spice of life, and is there any time in the whole long day when one needs a little spice more than in the morning, whether the morning is a snappy cold one, when it is hard to get up, a delightful spring one, when it is hard to think about work, or a sticky hot one, when it is hard to confront a day at all? So the good housewife who wants to send her family forth 100 per cent. efficient for the day's work or pleasure will try to get as much variety as possible into her breakfast menu.

Variety is not expensive; it costs thought only. The table should look as attractive as possible when the family first gathers there because daintiness and appeal can do much more in the morning when many people feel so apathetic about food. Spotless tablecloth, attractive china, a blossom or two in the centre of the table, or perhaps a pot of ferns, and some appetising fruit or fruit juice make an instant appeal.

It is no more expensive to have five or six different kinds of cereals in the house at one time, alternate them, than to have one kind only.

Toast is generally used on the breakfast table, but even toast gets monotonous. Try varying the manner of preparing it; French toast makes an excellent breakfast dish; cinnamon and powdered sugar sprinkled over the hot buttered toast is delicious, and toasted strips of bread, piled log cabin fashion, are pleasing to the eye besides making a slight change from the regular slices.

page 56

Intemperate Blame

Under the above heading the “Taihape Daily Times” deals trenchantly with the level crossing situation. Its editorial reads as follows:—

An amazing and certainly most intemperate and inexcusable attack on the railway authorities is published in an editorial in the Wanganui morning paper of to-day. The subject of this insensate attack is a level crossing fatality which occurred last Tuesday near Wanganui, and which most regrettably, was attended with loss of life. With these elementary if tragic facts burning in his mind, the writer of the article in question proceeded to apportion the blame, and stated that ‘the red roll of railway tragedies is a tragic record of the incompetence or callousness of the authorities in regard to ensuring the safety of the public.’ This is a very serious statement to make—so serious, in fact, that it invites sharp resentment not only from the railway authorities, but also from the higher authorities. When and where has a fatality occurred in which the circumstances even remotely justified a charge of incompetence or callousness being levelled at the authorities? The task of making all the railway crossings in New Zealand, or even the majority of them, absolutely ‘fool-proof’ is, at the present time, an impossible one. The authorities have cudgeled their brains for years past to devise some means of making motorists and others take ordinary precautionary measures when approaching crossings, but in vain. It would probably not be an exaggeration to say that most motorists, if they were in a mood to be quite frank, would admit that, at times, they take risks at crossings that are not fair to the railway authorities. Perhaps in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, these risks may be taken with impunity, but it is in the hundredth that death wins, and then, according to the writer of the article under review, the railway authorities must shoulder all the blame. But the climax of the scathing indictment had not been reached, for the writer was evidently in the grip of a fine frenzy and worse was to come. ‘All the excuses in the world,’ the article states, ‘will not eradicate (erase) those innumerable names from the red roll of the crossing or restore to their relatives the men, women and children who have been done to death.’ This is nothing else but mischievious nonsense. When have the authorities been guilty of any act of deliberate and premeditated neglect that would justify the cruel charge implied in these words, ‘done to death?’ If the ‘Chronicle’ knows of them why does it not declare them? Moreover, if it knows of a practicable plan whereby crossing fatalities can altogether be obviated, why does it not announce it?