Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 176, 14 November 1903, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

NEW ZEALANDERS travel far afield. A Bunedin boy is engineer and controller of a concession of 600,000 acies, held by a company in. Siberia. He found gold by simply w alking on to the cap of a reef. The party, he remarks, thinks he can do this sort of thing whenever he likes. He says everybody up that way is very stupid— except the New Zealander. * * * Curious advertisement from a Palmerston North paper — ' £o Rew ard — I will eive the above reward to anyone who can tell me the fiend v.ho hurt and blinded our yellow cat." People must have white bread. It looks so nice. Professor Bickerton of Christchurch, recently said that some loaves contained from loz to Hoz ot alum each. But then, of course, this was in Christchurch. * • • The Rev. W. Earee, of Maslcrton, released recently from the bonds of matrimony is going Home to England for a holiday. Musical circles in the Wairarapa will miss the cheerful parson. He is coming back, however. * * * A pretty full life well lived. Colonel N Y/. A. 'Wales, architect, of Dunedin, is dead. He was formerly Mayor of Dunedin, a member of the Assembly, an officer of the First Church, champion rifle shot, and colonel commanding the district. * * * Sir John Logan Campbell, Auckland's pioneer citizen, a-id the donor of Cornwall Park, was eighty-six years cf age on Novomber 3rd There are men in the colony who are older than that even, but who evidently still believe in "holding on for a rise." * * * Mr. T. E. Taylor, M.H.R., averred recently that some of the young NewZealand soldiers, who had had thenbuttons torn off their tunics by young ladies, were too lazy to work. If it would help the young man gave me a button to creep back into the good graces of Mr. Taylor and get a job, he can have it by applying to this office. * * * Some people are getting tired of the discussion of licensing politics in church. Rev. Mr. Fee, who, at Christchurch, criticised the Premier and the Licensing Brll from the pulpit, was astonished to see a large portion, of the congregation get up and disappear. They didn't want politics from the pulpit. It was a reasonable protest. * * * The "Wairarapa branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union have expressed their awful horror of the new Licensing Bill. That No. 9 clause, "No license no liquor," has stirred the very nicest people to the depths. So fai, the alleged fanatic, Richardson, of Auckland, and his followers, are the only temperance people who are genuinely glad that the grog is to be really prohibited in prohibition districts. In this, Richardson is at least true to his convictions. * # * An old gentleman, who appeared to be pretty sane, asked on the car the other morning what he thought of the fencing off of the Evans Bay beach from the public, said, with a great assumption of virtue ' Why, bless me, I never read the papers." It cannot be a matter of cash, for the tram-guards usually have a morning paper stuck in the rack. I notice that a City Councillor (who always travels free) almost invariably asks the guard for the loan of a naper. Couldn't the Council get a discount on their news literature 2 * * * Lord Northcote, the to-be GovernoiGeneral of the Austrahas, says he and his wife will do what they can to ' iender iustice to all dwelling under the Southern Cross." Sounds like the magnanimous promise of a feudal prince who is holding over the boiling oil foi the nresent. I had imagined that they had Chief Justices and magistrates and so on in Australia. Also, "all" dwelling under the Southern Cross includes the rather important islands of New Zealand and several million sauare miles in South Africa. His Lordship is taking a large contract.

Just imagine it. The wife ot a ma.il who doesn't belong to any union diei\ Sweet Nell" in the ' Caulfield," and won £W)00. Rer husband has left coal-heaving. Those Boeis aie surprising. ExPiesident of the ex-Free State Stevn who once got away in his shut, was a most pious Protestant until lecentlv. He is at present trying Roman Catholicism for a change. * * * English society papers aie fond of piffle. One red-covered weekh, much patiomsed bv the "haut ton," relates pathetically that good Kin.g Ned lecentlv went to New stead Abbey, and 'leveiently viewed the spot where Byron's favourite dog was buned " * * * A Ballaiat (Victoua) ex-constable has left £250 to the local hospital, £1500 and 77 acres of land to an oiphan asylum, £50 to his daughter, and 12s a week and a house to his widow. Charity didn't begin at home with the constable. He must have made pietty good wages too. * * * Lord Roberts was seventy-one years of ase the other day. "Bobs" celebrated the occasion by riding to hounds ox*er the stiffest country in Leicestershire. The average man of seventy-one in New Zealand js spoken of with bated breath as an "old identity " and would be duly wrapped in cotton wool if he permitted it. * « » Attending a dinner at which theie were many local celebrities present, I noticed an abstracted-looking individual who, however, could use a knife and fork tolerably well. The waiter stole up behind him. ''Olives, sir 9" "Owing to a great pressure of matter on our space we are unable to find room for it," was the leply. I knew then he was an editor. * * • I came across a quaint clause in a will the other day "In consideration of the love and affection borne to me by mv dear friend, James , who came to my aid while dark clouds weie threatening, I beoueath unto the said James the sum of £100." Enquiring what special act of merit James had perfoimed, I found that he had lent the quaint testator an umbrella' *■ ¥■ * ' Meiry England" has four hundred deer parks, fully s cocked, some 4000 acres, others 2000 and smaller ones of 1000 and under. People are cramped for space in England, and the powers want to know why the race is decadent. Over thirty millions of people haven't an inch of land, and become only landed proprietors when the Old Man w ith the Seethe executes a transfer. * * * Perhaps the best-born and most-dis-tinguished woman now in Wellington is the most plainly dressed. She is recently from Home, and, although not particularly handsome, or having; anything conspicuous-looking in the matter of dress, attracts instant attention. Many gaudily-attired Wellington ladies, who lack "repose," but not clothes, might take a pattern by the lady with the "auburn gilt" coiffure. * * * Lord Lonsdale, who tarried briefly in Australia recently, is at Home again. This I know by his published statement "that there was never such a wild s-cramble for political jobs with princely salaries as now exists under the Southern Cross." Hereditary nobles, with fat banking accounts, however, don't have to hustle for a living — therefore, don't need to scramble for political lobs. Necessity knows no law.