Stir Among Papeete's "Elder
p. 44 · Read in the full issue
Beauty Parlour In
Tahiti
Stir Among Papeete's "Elder Statesmen"
From Our Own Correspondent
Papeete, Sept. 20.
VI/E have been informed that a Beauty ** Parlour has been established at Papeete.
This news has bucked up some of us “elder statesmen” immensely. We are told we can have our grey hair changed to flaming titian bronze, or to the sleek black of a raven’s wing. And, more, the crow’s feet at our temples can be bur nished out, and the wattles of our jowls raised to the smooth plumpness of a Devonshire peach.
This is like the sun rising in the west and turning the evening of our lives into the brightness of mid-day.
Years ago, we used to go to the Jcun ease Tahitienne dances. We were already grey of hair then. But we told everyone we were platinum blondes, who had been born that way and that really we were not within 20 years of the age our un usual appearance proclaimed us.
The young women were very polite about it. They always danced with us when we asked them. Nevertheless, we suspected our stories were not very con vincing: for they were continually asking us if we were not too tired from dancing so much and we often caught them look ing longingly—over our shoulder during the dance —at some young fellow with black shellac hair.
Then, one day, we overheard them re ferring to us as ruau (old men) and we became discouraged. We decided to stay at home and be venerable and dignified, as our wives had long before told us— in curtain lectures of some length and tartness —befitting the number of our years.
But this new prospect changes things entirely. Already, we are making daily expeditions up Semaphore Hill to get the creakiness out of our knees. When we have finished our beauty treatments we are going again to the Jeunesse Tahiti enne dances to show those gals we can still shake a wicked foot in the tango and charleston—that is, if our wives do not find out what we are up to and nip the whole scheme in the bud!
Sir Frank Stockdale, K.C.M.G., C.8.E., M.A. (Cantab.), Agricultural Adviser to the British Colonial Office, sailed from Suva in September after carrying out official agricultural investigations in Fiji for three weeks. He is editor of the “Tropical Agriculturist” and has written
extensively on tropical agriculture.
Mr. P. M. McGregor, of the Auto mobile Association of Auckland, N.Z., a branch of which was recently established in Fiji, has been in the Colony with an Association patrol car, carrying out sign posting work on the roads of Viti Levu.