Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 139, 28 February 1903, Page 6

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

"God is good to the widders," sajd a lady who recently "got on to" all the winners at the Pahiatua races. This is a severe blow to the people who believe that his satanic majesty is the patron of the kingly sport. • • * You remember the sad fate of Mrs. Patuck Campbells husband? He enlisted in. the New Yeomanry, and was shot by the Boers while going forward under a flag of truce to parley with them. At the t'me the soldier husband of the celebrated actress was a sergeant. * * * I am glad to note that the Health Department is enquiring into the subject of the festering bank-note, with the ostensible object of getting the banks to '•kill" their paper money oftenex. What is the matter with an automatic sprayer, bv which each teller in a bank could disinfect all the mea-ry miorobe6 out of existence ? » * * Handed to me as a "sure enough" sample of a back-country school excuse "Miss Teacher, — My dotter's absents yesterday was unavoidable. Her shoes had to be half-souled, and she had a sore throte Her konstitution is delikit, and if she is absent any more, you wall know it is on account of unavodable sickness or someithinc else." TV * * Celebrities do not like their names nipped short. Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the actress, recently refused to appear in a New Pork theatre until a flaring advertisement calling her Mrs. Pat. Campbell, was taken, down. She saad it was vulgar, and over-familiar. Iremember to have heard of a celebrity w-hose front name was clipped to 'Dick." Do you play "Wibbley Wob?" Wibbley Wob has come to the funeral of played-out pang-pong, and consists of shoving an alleged football into the enemy's goal by means of a wobbling stick. The ping-pong ward at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum was recently burnt down and will not be re-built. The authorities, however, purpose building a larger wing for "Wibbley Wob" patients. * * * A New Zealand firm has patented a spring-gun alarm, for the protection of orchards, gardens, and poultry houses. I remember the one-time universal Australian custom of setting springguns for dingoes. No dingo was ever known to be shot by one, but the aggregation of sheep, horses, and men that stumbled into range would keep a boil-mg-down works busy for a month. A New Zealand burglar appears to* be as brainy as a wild dog. ♦ • * What a funny little man Mr. E. M. Smith, the Taranaki ironsand monarch, is. He made Kiner Dick quake in his shoes at a New Plymouth banquet the other day. He "told the Premier to Ms face" what he and the Liberal members of the West Coast required, which if ' they didn't get, there would be a new Government." Although the Premier smiled loudly it is felt that it must have been in sheer bravado, for an E. M. threat is not to be lightly valued. Poor Government! • ♦ • It is not always the easiest billet in the world to be "best man" at a redding. At a little up-country church last Friday the best man was standing in the porch. An Irish guest, who did not know him, asked him who he was. I'm the 'best man' !" replied the stalw art bushwhacker. Then, the Irishman started in to disprove it by knocking him down, but, unfortunately, the man from Trprjerary was unable to arrogate to himself the premier place at that matrimonial outfit. • * « The fortune-teller over on the "other side" is doomed. The New South Wales police are roping them in, and with them certain spiritualists, who do the same thing under other names. The spiritualists are objecting. They "do not w r ant to be branded as rocnies and vagabonds bv those who have neither the inclination nor ability to investigate the science of soul." Science of soul means the sort of thong that recently induced some of its students to pray hard, and refuse doctors' aid, while a patient slowly died in agony. Go it, police '

Rev. J. North, at Kaiapci, recently immersed a candidate for baptism in the biblical way in the local Jordan. It diew a crowd, of course. In the eveninp-, w hen some ladies were dipped in the tank provided for that purpose m the church, the people who had never seen a ceremony of the kind stood on the seats and applauded and laughed. * • • In futuie, the boat that leaves at 7.4-j will not leave till 8." Thus a notice on a Wellington Wharf. There is a business college now open in Wellington where people are taught simple English composition. Touching composition, a very large painted sign outside a Wellington house of amusement reads "Every evening at 8 p.m." • * • I daresay you often Picture the drought-smitten Queenslander as a long, lean, lantern-jawed specimen of shrivelled humanity. I have a photograph before me of three gentlemen from the drought-smitten area, who are "crying the odds" at a down-country race meeting. The haggard trio aggregated sixty-two stone. * * * Drunkenness is an offence which is extremely elastic. Usually the convicted imbiber stands to lose the price of ten drinks or so. In Hawke's Bay, however, the up-to-date magistrate fined an inebriate female £5, while an Italian gentleman, whose English was fluent and idiomatic, suffered to the same extent. No there Mere no Js.P. on the Bench! • * # There was some little difficulty the other day at a mixed meeting, over which a "new woman" presided. A gentleman, who wanted to say something, had never addressed a petticoated "chair" before. He called her "Madam President," but she frowned. He tried "Mrs. Chairwoman," and the audience grinned. A friend suggested "Mrs. Charwoman," and the meeting was robbed of its sober qualifications. Anyhow, mightn't a chairwoman be a spinster? * * * Quaint advertisement in a country newspaper "Wanted, situation by schoolmaster — understands farming." The Department of Education ouo-ht to close on this gentleman, give him a school, and let him put in his holidays hoeing turnips. As you know, there are few country schools that are allowed sufficient funds to keep going without local assistance, and the idea of having a schoolmaster who might assist' the funds per pick, shove], hoe or axe, is all right. * * * A parson one recent Sunday astonished his Waararapa congregation by preaching an obituary service on "Rudyard Kipling." Nobody in the congregation had heard that the Anglo-Indian word slasher had "gone over." The parson is a very busy man, however, and, in apology, afterwards explained that he had seen "Rudyard' Kipling's latest" a& a heading to "The Rowers." In bis mind the subject became "The late Rudyard Kipling." Hence the touching tribute to the poet, who probably still lives. * * * Did you read "On the Heels of De Wet?" The author tells how some enthusiastic British prisoners, under the guerilla chief's command, lay dow n unaWe to march longer. De Wet called for the commanding officer (Lieuten-ant-Colonel Boyle) to come forward, and as he did so struck him violently across the* face with a sjambok. The Colonel "went for" De Wet, but the Boers put an end to the fight. The author winds up prophetically "Yet the day will doubtless come when ignorant English people will vie with each other to do honour to the man who struck the miscreant blow." * * * Wellington youngsters are fairly selfconfident. A boy, who left school a week ago, told his parents he was going out to look for work. He was out all day, and reported to his parents at 5.30 o'clock that he was duly engaged at Messrs. and Co.'s, of Cubastreet. Curious to know how he had so quickly obtained work, his father found out that the young hopeful saw a sign "Boy Wanted" hung out. He took the card down, and walked into the shot* with it. "Here's your sign "he said. "What did you take it down for?" asked Mr. . "Well, you see, you won't need it any longer. I've come to take the job'" And he took it.