SOUTH SEA ETIQUETTE

When a managerial candidate has graduated from the blanket-tending-towel-gathering state he is immediately confronted with the problems of the perfect host. In not a few American colleges he can provide for the discomfort of the visiting teams by assigning then members to widely separated fraternity houses; in other, propriety demands that the athletic guests be banished to the hotel, nearest the railroad tracks--where sleep is an infrequent luxury. Departure from the usual routine of entertainment, however, is usually forgiven in a busy land where the overworked candidates find it difficult to keep abreast of the current literature on "men and manners". In the South Pacific it is different. Oversight on the part of the South Australian Cricket Club in falling to provide afternoon tea for the visiting New South Wales players led to threats of withdrawal from the scheduled match.

The mention of tea seems to imply that the outraged visitors were Englishmen, although the rumor once persisted that Harvard oarsmen likewise delighted in an afternoon cup. The origin of the English love for tea is said to have been associated with the enclosure of the commons. With the loss of common rights went the ability to keep a family cow; and when milk was denied him the Englishman turned to tea. Be that as it may; the addition to tea does seem the distinguishing mark of the Englishman, just as the red strand once identified all the cordage of the Royal Navy.

It would seem that the real occasion for the protests of the New South Wales players was their outraged conviction that the Australian Club doubted their English-ness. In a land many thousands of miles from Lombard Street the title of Englishman is worth claiming; if a dish of afternoon tea will prove it, by all means let it be served. Another such "fnux pas" by the cricket club manager candidate will no doubt be the occasion for-cutting him.