Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 106, 12 July 1902, Page 7

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

Miss Stone, the lady who was captured by brigands, and who was released by ransom, ought to be jolly thankful to those men. She is to get £10,000 for a book about her experiences. It there aie any brigands who read the Fkee Lvxce, will they kindly communicate with 'Miss Muffitt?" She will come at once and will be easily caught. * • • Suggested by a Sydney correspondent that the few cases of plague found in New Zealand hare been brought over bv fish. Not long ago several fish were caught in Sydney suffering from the plague, and it is thought likely that the snappers were flea-bitten over on the "other side," and came to die on the New Zealand coast! • • • Whole hundredweights of type are being remorselessly thrown about by the press of the Empire m picking the particular honour that will be thrust {upon our at present titleless Premier. The "tip" that causes me to chuckle in a suppressed way is the one that says there is not a shadow of a doubt that Dick will be Governor-General of United Australia. Mr. Chamberlain said, when approached the other day about an increase of salary for Australia's Gover-nor-General, that he saw no reason to alter existing arrangements, or to augment the salary from the Imperial Treasury. # My humble opinion is, that Dick will refuse at once to be bundled into the Federal Government House as a cheap line Also, that the mam who has redTiced the giants of the Commonwealth to the stature of pigmif» by his overmastering talents, and all that kind or thine, would be hardly the person whom a delighted populace would welcomp with pseans of praise.

Waihi is going ahead. Did you hear about the proposed ladies' mounted parade, intended to have taken place on Coronation Da,y? They were to wear a "special uniform," consisting of a "black hat and scarlet jacket." Waiheathens should feel relie\ed that the ceiemonv was postponed. Just to show their admiration of the Boers, the South African constabulary people are using the rank of veldtcornet. ' Lieutenant" has gone out of favour with the authorities for African police officers. Don't the British pick up some sly wrinkles now -a-days p Keep the burghers sweet you know. • • * Over Sydney side they struck a novel and popular idea of celebrating Peace. They suggested the hanging of 8000 Js.P ' And they are going to carry out the idea. All and sundry photographers in Droughtland have instructions to photograph every amateur ''beak" in the country, and to hang them in a national gallery, and give copies to the police. So it is not so after all. is it p « ♦ * The Shah of Persia plays ping-pong. He got an English tutor to flick the celluloid, and when that gentleman had banged it for some time. His Serenity told him to "be done with that nonsense and show me ping-pong." Now , however, several dozen of the Shah's betterhalves are devotees of the game, and the harem resounds to peals of muffled laughter, and the resonant swish of the racquet. Pretty tame sport for the girls with only one effete old male frump to play with. * * « One way of getting even with a person one does not love. A Patea paper has it : "If the person signing himself 'X.Y.Z.' wishes to better his occupation, I have a vacancy for someone to clean out my stables. — G. Y. Pearce." Wellington has a grievance. Here is Andrew Carnegie throwing away his fourteenth million in public gifts, and he has not founded anything in Wellington It is said that Carnegie has a specially large pigeon-hole made for New Zealamd begging letters, and that he is perfectly horrified at the number of relatives he has in the colony. At a Liverpool banquet ("Andy" drinks water . it's cheap!) last month, he remarked that the Carnegie family was the most prolific in history, and that his schoolmates who were brought up under the same switch, exceed the population of Chicago. I wonder whereabouts in that pigeon-hole my latest letter is?

Mr. Geil, a comic evangelist is the latest thing in soul-saving devices. He bnng& a breath of the music-hall, a whiff of Mark Twain, and a slice of decided satire into his sermons, and alleady he has affected the houses 1 of several theatres in the towns of the Australian States. Mr. Geil (whose name, by the way, is pronounced "Guile") threatens to bring his biblical humour to New Zealand. It is a new line certainly, and may or may not go down with Maonlanders, with odds on the latter.The "antediluvian fungoids" in the German "House," have recently decided to admit women to political meetings They are roped off, however, and must not speak on platforms, or lecture on any subject in fact. I rejoice to think that in this enlightened country women may have a Women's Political League capable of turning out more lesolutions during a session than mere male politicians can do during a Parliament ■^ *- *- Would it not be fun to let loose some of our political ladies, and ex-New Zealand lady mayors, on the unsuspecting Germans, and would it not be a largesized order for any German Act to cut short their perorations if they once got into their stride in Sausageland ? ♦ • » 'Oily" Rockfeller, the richest man in the world, would give a tolerable sum for a good square meal. He is a confirmed dyspeptic, and every patent medicine monger believes that a testimonial fiom him would be worth a cartload of diamonds. Curious that millions of dollars do not help a man to health , is it not p So extremely nervous and depressed is the oil king, that a dollar-bill throws him into a tremor, and the sight of money puts him off his slop food for a da.y or two. His hair and eyebrow s have fallen off with worry, and not all the hair restorers 1 money can buy will grow him a decent thatch. Hard luck ' * ¥■ * I believe I've read everything that has been written about Captain Russell's knighthood. Everybody is convinced that he is the right man in the right place." One editorial person believes his knighthood "is an act of politjical justice." and that it is a reward lieves his knighthood "is an act of Doetical iustice " and that it is> a reward slaueht of the Premier. If I am to believe that cocksure Dunedin " Star." our Dick will play skittles with Sir William no more, as Mr. Chamberlain

has a very large-sized honour that will keep him elsewhere. No one will be more sorry than the new knight if Mr. Seddon does not come back. * * * The craving fox notoriety is very strong in many people. Rather extraordinary the methods taken, though, sometimes. Imagine leaving your entire wardrobe on a door-step, and telling a bloodcurdling tale of masked men, pistols, and ill-treatment. That is what a seventeen-year-old Auckland girl recently did. These people constitute a very grave danger. Girls with hallucinations have been the means of hanging many men. * » • Conan Doyle, who was knighted because the King might have been crowned a week or two back, is supposed to have been honoured as representing literature. Do you thing his Sherlock Holmes stories put him on his knightly pedestal? Well, hardly. If Conan Doyle had not taken a brief for the Army and written his "Great Boer War." he would still be plain "Dr." Probably Conan Doyle helped as much towards the fizzling of the Transvaal fireworks as Stead did, in fanning them into dangerous explosion. *> * * * According to a Sydney paper, efforts are to be made to illustrate the Federal "Hansard," and put it on the market as a "penny comic." Suggested that the comic bits be printed in red ink, so that readers will not have to wade through so much black dreariness to get to the jokes. There is a way to a surplus in the idea. If Messrs. E. M. Smith. A. R. Atkinson, George Fisher, and Wairarapa Hornsbv could be made an editorial staff to deal tfausly with New Zealand "Hansard," the circulation would go up to enormous heights.