Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 104, 28 June 1902, Page 7

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

I see that Mr. "Banjo" Paterson is preparing far another lecturing torn At any rate, it is my infeieiice tiom tiie fact that he has left on a trip to the Cannibal Islands for some moie sensational newspaper 'copy * * • General Booth, commander-in-chief of the Salvation Army, has gone to Amsterdam. It is considered likely that he is after Oom Paul Think of the crowd the ex-President would draw if he was turned on by the ' Army" to go round with the tambourine' ♦ • * What do> you say to this I—those1 — those of you who fondly believe that education always softens manners? Those horrid Queensland bushrangers, whose deeds of ruthless violence positively make one's flesh creep, are both College-bred men. Who'd have thought it? • ♦ The Wail:ato hunter Ascot recently mistook a three-feet hedge for a sixfeet one, and a four-feet ditch for a thirty-seven feet one. Anyhow, that is the height and distance the owner says he covered. If only they could have increased that horse's seeing power w ith spectacles he ought to win a steeplechase in one lump. * • • Andrew Carnegie is wanted badly in New Zealand He recently said that newspaper men. were scandalously underpaid (I suppose he includes women?), and he would start a newspaper on which the people were paid as much as the ordinary carpenter. When Carnegie brings his paper out, he is going to pay the junior reporters £3 a week, and the editor from £2000 to £7000 according to talent There will be an exodus of newspapei poonlo from TSpw Zealand when "AnrVs" sheet is on the stocks.

Miss A. E. Evans, Australia's first lady LL.B., besides being fearfully and wondei fully learned, is young and pretty. If the. only other lady baruster in. New South Wales can be taken as. an example, the law is not a niiine of wealth for the female sex. The other lady lawyer retened to is behind the" bar of Sydney's most stvhsh hotel * ♦ » It is whispered that a widow, of unceitam age, has laid siege to the affections of a< twenty-five year old boarder, whom she has been successful m persuading to be led b-\ the noose to the altar. Considering that her dear lamented has been dead but two years, and that the bridegroom-elect was a heavy creditor, there is reasonable hope that the lady intends getting "square" with him. * • • Mr. Chas. Hiorns (late manager of the New Zealand Times Company) and Miis Nellie Hiorns, left bv the Wanimoo, on Saturday last, for Sydney. They intend to oaten the P and O Company's s.s. India on the other side, and take passage bv her for the Old Country, where they v ill do a round of sight-seeing. I hear that Mr. Hiorns will most likely start m business for himself on his return to the colony. * * * The Rev. Thos. de Witt Talmage the sensational American preacher, who made an enormous fortune out of preaching and lecturing ordinary people into keeping on his very narrow track to Heaven, died the other day and didn't leave a smerle cent to the cause of chanty. lam not surprised. After seeing and hearing him in Wellington, and especially after reading what Maioi Pond (his lecture manager) says about him I thought Mr Talmage wouldn't bang many saxpences t- " ~ Delightfully frank are some Australian candidates for political honouis Here is a slice out of one candidate's address for a South Austialian constituency — I'm not gieat on politics, and I don't think it matteis much who gets into the House. They all seem to. be on 1 the make But the free railway pass will suit my business all to pieces. The screw is all ri< ht for a chap like me, for it is lust as easy to pop into Parliament when it's sitting as anywhere else. Besides., your name is kept constantly before the puVhc, and that means a lot these times. If I don't get in I shan't w orry much, but if I do the thing will be a, leally eocxl scoop " Is he a fair sample of the colonial legislator 0

Australia is agitated touching Sir Joseph Ward's statement, made recently that, "Except New Guinea and one other island I cannot at present mention, all other Polynesian islands virtually belong to Maoriland." One paper believes that the "one other" island not mentioned is Australia. There is a fear expressed, too, that if Barton gets hard up he may pawn Australia to our Premier. * « # The Yankees again' A company in New York contracts for half-a-dollar a year to lend you an umbrella any time it comes on to rain. The company has depots all over New York Curious thing about the umbrella is that it has the firm's advertisement in lartre letters printed on the silk' It is nothing new for people to want the loan of an umbrella, but the idea of paying, for the privilege is distinctly novel. * • • You remember the "Sun,", of course, that ram its half-penny round, and set so suddenly In Vienna, they have a farthing luminary, with a circulation of 25,000. England started the farthing journal business thirty years ago but nobody bothered about buying the "Middlesex Courier," as it was called. I remember to have seen a New Zealand paper that would be fair value at the price. "Husbands given away with a pound of tea" may not be emblazoned on gro-cei-y store windows. A Chnstehurch woman recently offered toi order £70 of goods if her grocer could find her "a nice young man, not over 24." Funny thing; that the handwriting of the applicant resembled very much the graphology of an aged female customer of the business man's, with a Denohant for pussies. Funny, too, that the lady bases her promise of the order on the supposition that the man will be able to pa^ the bill, as the basis of her wealth i« an old age pension An Oxford undergraduate is writing to- the Home' papers wondering if the men admitted from the colonies under Rhodes' scholarships "will prove fit for the society of gentlemen." I should imagine they wouldn't. "The advent of several bundled backwoodsmen and colonials" is annoying this sprig of old nobility. As a matter of solid fact, the University is open for the son of thp peer or the dustman, provided they can afford residence there, but the dustman who pays and the bushmen who earns hi«. place are different clay, aio they not?

One Palmerston rat-catcher last week killed 300 rats m one day in the Corporation rubbish heap. Is not Palmerston the progressive place in the Manawatu with a go-ahead population ? I would hare thought that a wire-net-ting feaice round the rubbish heap, a dozen oases of kerosene, a match, and the ousting of the Council that permitted the rubbish heap, was a tolerably good way of dealing with the matter, » » •« The "dependencies" of New Zealand are coming to light, and are quite loyal to King and country. Eight pounds six shillings and sixpence is the Cook Islands contribution to the Premier's purse. I fear me much that King Dick will take a leaf out of Timi Kara's book, and refuse the lucre. There is a rumour abroad that the purse will be used to found a national museum in Wellington. If you have seem the pathetic collection of curios now gethered under the Wellington Museum roof, you will agree Richard might toworse.