Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 148, 2 May 1903, Page 6

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

The wealthiest men of Wellington are by no means the most generous. Urn you pick the gentleman who attended church last Sunday and refused to put any money m the plate? He told the plate-bearer "he had nothing. Then, said that smart person, "take some, tor this is a collection for the aged and needy." Whom did you say.'' • * * Even the local evening "Thunderer" boeeles at intervals over cable news. Whit do you make of the folding message, published m the Post i— "tTo magistrates appointed in connection with the reforms were shotby Albanians at Skutara, m Northern Albamia and escaped scathless. Wanted, ouS- proof magistrates for issue m perturbed British dependencies. Dick Seddon scores again. On the road from Pipiriki to Waihoa tounsts pass a, bush in the midst of which towers a gigantic rata, some X high There is such a difference between the monster and ito mediocre brethren that it has been onnstened by the admirine stage-coach drivers Tick Seddon " Curious thing about the toe £ ? that no parasitic vine ever dares to cling to it. # The Rev. John Hoatson who used to play Rugby football a bit in this couAtrJ, is evidently preparing the Tay to come back again. Recently at Home, he advertised us thus — 1 have never lost my love for New Zealand It is the finest country I know, and I have travelled in three, continents Mv advice to New Zealanders is, never leave your country to live elsewhere." ♦ * * Ping-pong is really dying out. It died out quite suddenly at a little social affair in Hobson-street last Wednesday. Some of those fine houses thereaway are old and consequently infested with rats One of the maids had set a rattrap in a corner of the drawing-room, and no one seemed to know. Pingpong progressed. The celluloid fell. A gilded youth and a sweet girl dived simultaneously, but the youth got there first In the darkness of the corner ne found— the raWrati. Ping - pong tabooed henceforward. A Wellington volunteer, who suffered through the Foxton manoeuvres, is not going to be made a field marshal, but he ought to be 1 . Seems that the gallant soldier rose suddenly out of a ditch, covered with mud, and demanded the surrender of a party of the enemy numbering twenty strong. He considered he had surrounded them. He w as annoyed that, after having crawled five hundred yards down a muddy ditch to do the surrounding that they refused to be led home to pinei as prisoners of w ar. He would have made a brilliant Imperial Yeoman. ♦ * * Ever noticed that if nature blows a man's, hair out by the roots, the lost thatch is replaced by a capillaceous covering of another colour. I wonder why men who have rejoiced in the possession of coal-black locks, when it becomes necessary to wear a wig, choose one of a dull red colour ? Do you know any wig that is not red. Not a fine, fiery auburn shade, but the shade a beetroot assumes when the Chinaman, having been unable to sell it for a month, puts it m the back garden to freshen it up. Also, can you tell me why a man with such a wig should •n ear painted eyebrows of a deep black colour? ♦ • • The latest musical prodigy is a six-Year-old Spanish girl named Pepita Airiola, who is not only a brilliant pianist, but is able to compose musical nieces of considerable merit RareJv has one so young gained_ the favourable notice of the coemoscenti. Josef Hoffman who astonished London audiences in 1886 by his brilliance as a pianist, and who composed various pieces, was ten years old while Otto Hegner. another musical prodigy. who appeared in 1888 was eleven veßrs of asre. Bv the way T remember little Otto bein,^ asked bv alleged experts to name the place in the musical scß.le occupied bv a soimd emanating from a brap.s candlestick struck w ; th a poker. This was child's play to the lone-haired youngster.

In writing obituary notices of the late Dr. Grace, no one seems to have lemembered that he came to New Zealand in 1800, and in the ship "Nugget. ' That boat brought out a cargo of shot, fcliell, and soldiers — details for vanous regiments required to quell our Maon biethien. * • * Rev. W. Scorgie, the gentleman who, in Dunedin, made distressful allegations against the "chief end" of the publican, which was to "ruin men." etc., seems to have climbed down rather rapidly. He said that as far as his personal knowledge was concerned the publicans of Dimedin were worthy men, and good citizens. Wonder if he kindly exeepted all the other cities, too p * • * Wellington is always to the fore in matters of reform. Senator Wellington, of America, has introduced an amending bill prohibiting any man from holding a fortune exoeedmg ten million dollars. Senator Wellington's fortune is not half as much as that sum. It would be as well to wait for Pierpont Moron's instructions before predicting the fate of the bill. * * * Has the spirit of gambling fastened its horrid talons on the Education Boards of this country? The. other da-" the Auckland Committee put three teachers' names in a hat, and shook them. A solemn silence prevailed while an aldermanic committeema-n closed his eyes and drew the name of the teacher to be sent away to a boggy school in the North. The teacher thus drawn was ordered to stand by in readiness to become a bog trotter. She refused. They are .still shaking maines in "hard-hitters." * » « A paragraph from Adelaide "Register," of fifty years ago, is wandering about New Zealand lookiner for a wastepaper basket. It tell® how the voyage from South Australia is fixed at, eighty days. It also quaintly observers that ■ "If the ships be propelled wholly by steam engines of not less power than at the rate of 20 horses to every 100 registered tons or by such steam engines in aid of sails, the duration of the voyage to South Australia is fixed in the latter case at 36 days." It is done slightly under that period now-a-days I believe. * * ♦ Who says all the genius is gone out of religious writings? This is a verse from a poem in a sectarian paper- — When we creep so slowly upwards, When each day new burdens bring, When we strive so hard to conquer Vexing sublunary things. When we wait, and toil, and suffer, "We are working for our wings." Seems like the expression of the overwrought feelings of a fowl fancier, whose egg percentage is on the wane. *■ * * I suppose it really is true that most girls regard the interval between school and matrimony as a necessary evil, or as so much time to be killed as pleasantly as possible. A witness in an Arbitration Court case at Christchurch asked if girls took their work seriously, replied that they did not unless they were over the age beyond which their hopes of matrimony were gone. The court laughed but there is a tragedy in the fact — for the factory girl on the shelf. * * ♦ Accursed country ? Good heavens, why? Remarks inspired by a notice on a bridge down South — "Loads exceeding four tons are not allowed to cross this bridge. By order." The following was written below — "A swagger passed here to-day with oiver 1000 tons weight on his shoulders; (of care), and if poverty and suffering were weighed by tons, there would be no bridge left in this accursed country." Aw ful to reflect that our estimate of a country's worth is gauged by our ability to get a job. * * • Working men in Wellington do manage sometimes to scrape enough money together to buy a house. There is rivalry between these worthy propertyowners, too. Last year a wharf lumper, who got a nice little "div." in Tattersall's. built a house. Now, a friend of his gets £200 by the death of a relative in England. He went away to the architect at once. He wanted a plan of a five-roomed house drawn. The architect asked him w hat kind of an aspect he required. He enquired if bus friend had an aspect. The architect replied that he had. Thei newly-cashed man requires the architect to provide two aspects for his superior residence. » • ♦ I always imagined that the term, "a Scotch," aft applied to a beverage obtainable in ai hotel, was a contraction of a "Scotch whisky." There is a precedent , recently established in a Thames Court, which clears the mystery up. Seems some nerson had been drinking such a refiesher, and that the case in some wa,v depended on correct analysis of the word. His Worship appealed to

the police sergeant, as being most likely to understand such things, but that officer was evidently shocked at the imputation. However, Scotchmen will grieve to hear that it has been proved that their national drink is "shandygaff" I * * * The late Sir Hector Macdonald was b nef —but polished. When Sir Hector was in, Auckland Sir J. Logan Campbell occupied the chair. He knew that Sir Hector delighted not m eiuloflastie addresses, and told the General he was going to propose his health vi two sentences. "Delighted to hear it hope to be able to follow your example." Sir John "Gentlemen, it has been said that out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. General, out of the fulness of our hearts we pledge you a bumDer glass." Uprose Sir Hector "Dr. Campbell, I thank you for the bievity of your speech; gentlemen, I thank you for the volume of your applause."