The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-11-18
THE POPULARITY
OF mrs, W|GGS

} We may rejoice that Mrs Wigs of
the Cabbage Patch is to come TO an
incarnation in our city-that she is to
have a local habitation where already
she has a name. Unlike her habita-
ton, which is to be only the shifting
canvas of a Suggesting, her name
has been so long a household word
among US that we may now call her
kamaaina. Five years ago we read the
| chronicle of her brave and homely life.
| Today the voice Of the bookseller in
our city thrills with enthusiasm as he
recounts the amazing Honolulu vogue
of Mrs. Wigs of the Cabbage Patch
"a vogue that is still good taste, if not
the height of fashion.
5 popularity so persistent leads US
| TO question if it is not founded on
| merit Why does Mrs. Wigs still
| smile and cheer? And that, too. when
| SO many of her contemporary heroes
and heroines have slipped from the
public gaze? Partly, largely, because
she does smile and cheer. Her own
thought was that it was sinful to
fuss" She never applied superlatives
to misfortunes.'' Her philosophy lay
in keeping the dust off her rose-colored
spectacles." She is a wonderful, al
most an incredible, example of the
''compensations of the poor
Then she amuses US perpetually, |
whether she is teaching Sunday school /
with a stocking on an eye temporarily |
out of commission, or resuscitating /
dying horse with hot soup and boiling |
tallow, or enjoying a play a the opera /
house, "hopelessly entanged'' in a bor
roWed crepe veil. Her humor is I'M
conscious and all her own. 1t is fresh |
as the criSpest lettuce-all the fresher
that now and then, it glistens with
tear. Her creator, Mrs. Rice, be it 4
said, reinforces Mrs Wigs with a
most delectable wit that never fails to Il
extort the toll of laughter. There is. II
besides, the charm of exquisite patFos, H
even in the LONELINESS of the life that H
Mrs. Wigs raises from the ridiculous
to the sublime. What though Jimmy
seems to die unnecessarily? How beau
tiful her courage in that heartrending
watch for DEATH How touching her
ever-present sense of lossI
The great appeal of Mrs Wigs is
ulFeclly 10 the nedft, To- the Ideals OF
patience and courage and devotion that
we all enshrine in our inmost souls.
Mistaken ideals, We may hold them to
be, when blindly held, as shown in the
awful suffering that came of her pride
her incapacity, her hesitation to ask
for relief. But we have little room to
criticize. We strongly suspect that in
restitution like hers we, unlike her.
night have forgotten hospitality and B
charity and honor, that we might have
found ourselves mean-spirited and S
morally down-a t-the-heel
1t is a simple primitive. absorbing
story of Mrs. Wiggs-told
'harmingly and easily. without point
ns any one obvious moral The mod
.rn sociologist, in fact, quite disap-
proves of the tale with the easy-going
of the poor the old-fash-
oned, personal charity of the Christ
mas lady" and her basket, the passive
ndurance of dreadful conditions that
Mould shrek aloud to heaven. To
he great heart of humanity, however.
ars- Wigs comes with her appeal. and
hat heart of mankind knows her to be
sweet. genuine, unselfish exemplar
f that noblest of all virtues high
ourage. MABEL WING CASTLE