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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3771, 12 September 1907, Page 4

“ I have lived in New Zealand for 43 years and reared seven sons; that ought to he proof enough that I wasn’t drunk,” declared an olu gentleman of 73 winters and a damaged physiognomy at the Auckland Police Court on Friday morning. ‘‘He was in a helpless state of drunkenness,” remarked the arresting constable. ‘‘ He was so drunk that he couldn’t stand.” “Well,” retorted the ancient bibber, ‘‘lf I couldn’t stand I could walk, so what’s the odds,” and they let him off upon payment of the fare for the cab, which he protested had been a totally unnecessary luxury. A convict named Dehorne, who has just been pardoned in Paris, after serving seven years’ imprisonment, was so altered in appearance when he reached home that his wife' refused to acknowledge him as her husband. The man had a long way to walk, and when he reached his native village he was barefooted, clothed in rags, and his hair —which had been black when he went to prison—was white as snow. Plis wife ordered him away as an imposter. He had to go to the mayor, prove his identity, and take that official back to his wife’s house before he could induce her to believe that her husband had really returned. ‘‘The Court of the Tuileries,” by “Ee Petit Homme Rouge,” contains a sketch of Worth, the English founder of the famous dressmaking house. “In his establishment he had a salon de lumiere, the walls of which were of huge mirrors, and from which daylight was excluded. By the light of a dozen gas-jets with moveable shades, the lady who there tried on her new toilette de bal was seen as she would be seen the following night at the Tuileries. And now it was that the master made his appearance —a man rather below the average height, with a full, shiny face, all pink and white, his fair hair parted in the middle, his whiskers closely cropped, his moustaches drooping and glittering like gold. He wore a perpetual smile —he seemed to bow without bending, perhaps because his short frock-coat was so very tightly buttoned. As a rule it was only with customers that he spoke French and then with a marked accent. His subordinates in the salon de lumiere were usually English girls, Miss Mary, Miss Esther. And he always remained quite calm, he never made a fuss, never addressed an angry word to a subordinate. But his coup d’ oeil was Napoleonic. He immediately detected a fault, and indicated in very lew words what should be done to repair it. Not only did he fight against the crinoline, succeeding by 186 S in reducing it to something like a vertugadin, but he also opposed the excessively decollete bodice- ‘ I dress ladies,’ he remarked one day to a journalist. ‘ Eet the demi monde go elsewhere !’ Such was Mr Worth, the King of Fashion.”