Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 176, 14 November 1903, Page 12

Entre Nous

FUNNY little thing from Chnstohurch. The inexorable lav, , as personified by local Js.P., recently said that bad roads were no excuse for footpath-riding cyclists. They would be fined. Next morning, while one of those cyclists was plugging aJong the bad road adjacent to the footpath whereon he had been captured, he met the presiding lustice who had fined him gaily scorohan~ along the footpath. * * * The total immersion of grown people who submit to baptism is am evidence 1 — especially during oold weather — of the pluck of the baptised. A little incident comes from Waihi. Several persons had been duly baptised, and stood shivering on the side of the la>rg^ tank in the floor of the church. The clergyman gave out th© number of a hymn. The hymn was, "Up From the Grave He Arose." The incident is a perfectly true one. * * » There were' no snakes in Ireland until recently. An Australian Irishman has corrected the small defect. Recently, he let loose in Phoenix Park a big basketful of tiger snakes. The "tiger" is a yellow-bellied gentleman, that will chase you on land or water. * * * Wha r u about a policeman as a "pick-me-up" after a persistent course of alcohol? A gentleman who had been celebrating the birth of King Edward was quite overcome. His limbs refused their office, his brain refused to work, he was "a horrible example" of the worst kind. Not a trace of life was. left in him, except, perhaps, a snore or so. "Phwat's this p " says a policeman, coming along the paith. "Dhrunk i® it , come on thin " he said, inserting as hand in the derelict's collar. The man. made no sign , he collapsed. Robert proceeded to pick up the derelict, and propDed it against the wall. Why peonle should laugh, we know not, still they did. Robert went to look for a cab. The man was so stiff, he would stay there for a minute. Robert returned with the cab. Roused from letbarey by the obfuscated thoughts of a police cell, the birthday vivant was outtinc out a tremendous pace. "Phwere is he ? " enquired the "trap." "There " said twenty-five people, pointing to a small speck near the Botanical Gardens. Then, the cabman wanted to be paid '

Tllo big gooseberry season dou n South must not have been a prolific one, when the editor of the Wmton "Record" lias had to turn his 1 attention to the product of the barnyard duck. He states tihat some spletndid specimens of Pekin ducks' eggs have been submitted to his inspection, several weighing oV lbs. Someone has been "ringing an" a setting of moa eggs on our astute' Little fuend. Frank Hyde. * * * Bible-reading in day schools is not causing quite such a stir as formerly. Scriptural instruction still proceeds, however, in. the Sunday schools. Only last Sunday Leviticus was being discussed in a certain suburban school. After having read several chapters of aincient law s, the teacher turned to the class "Who delivered the law unto Moses p " The first boy didn't know. The class looked blank. One little chap, at the foot of the class, jigged up and down, and sawed the air with his hand. 'Please, Miss'" "Well 9 " "Mr. Seddon. Miss!" * * People with water-taps supplied from Wainui-o-mata are trying to be funny by writing to the papers talking about the "skin-flint" folks who are too mean to buy tanks. These hilarious persons, who have not suffered from the drought, advise property-owners to buy some more tanks. It isn't the property-own-ers who suffer from the lack of water in Wellington; it is the property-own-ers' support — the tenants. Also, in the town area of this very go-a,head and up-to-date city it should be unneoessary to have tanks. Everybody loves sunshine, of course, but the grumbling is not only heard in Wellington. All through the dry country crops are maturing too rapidly — wheat is coming into ear with six inches of stalk, grain is plentiful, but it is drying up. Longcontinued dry weather is more disastrous to New Zealand laind than to Australia, for it has not the recuperative power that is so marvellous a feature, of drought-smitten Australia. * ♦ ♦ Some of the young scamps who made the morning of the Fifth of November uneasy with their "Guy Fawkes, Guy, stick him on a lamp-post, and there let him die '" w ere much distressed that they couldn't find enough old clothes to make the Spanish martyr. They got their little go-cart, and put a live boy in for the "Guy." At the house of one oid lady they commenced their matins, with the result that the said lady charged the whole lot with the broom. The horse bolted, and left the "Guy" in his barrow. Mrs. Muldoon got to work to wreck the "Guy," and when that young party got out and bolted, she dropped the broom, and sat down in astonishment. "Be th' powers, it's a punishment to me fer chasm' the innocent bhovs so it is " she said, and she doesn't believe yet that that boy was a real live larrikin. She is still telling the "ghost" story.

A Cartertom correspondent tells us that the laying of the foundation-stone of a local churtah was recently celebrated by the drinking of whisky. He thinks it was an incongruous proceeding evidently. We never heard of a foundation-stone laying that made teetotalers of anybody. Other exciting things are taking place m hub number two of the Waarar&pa. The .Borough Council is going to impose a dog tax, and the local registrar is said to! be spending his spare Sunday afternoons with a noosed clothes-line and a fence post, the latter acting as anunregistered dog, and the former as a lasso. The Brick and Tile Company are supposed to have kindly consented to the use of their kiln as a crematorium for unregistered canines. The correspondent who furnishes the pith of these stirring items rather wearily remarks that a reduction in the price of sausages is imminent. Since a Wellington resident found a piece of pork in a sausage, the dog joke has gone out of favour. * * * When the ordinary person gives a fivei-pound note in chanty, he wants to see that he gets the full credit for it, and it rarely occurs to him that he is paying off any part of the debt he owes to humanity for itg forbearance. A Melbourne man recently forwarded a cheque for £1000 to the local hospital as "a small thanks-offering for all the blessings granted to me and mine for the last forty years in this country." He added that he particularly wished his name to be kept a profound secret. What an example' * * * That laconic swagsman, who poisoned himself the other day in New South Wales, and wrote a note, "Full up, . Thomas Long " is one of a very large class that isn't exactly the class the average New Zealander believes it to be. There are despairing professional men, broken clergymen, briefless lawyers, and even "busted" politicians "on the track" in the great lone world of Australia, who moon away a life very pleasantly in dodging work and worry. We remember an aged man-o'-warsman . who had travelled up and down the colony on foot for twenty-five years. He had never done a tap of work during that time, and didn't intend to. * i * There vi as a ghost in the township and the man in bluei was goin,? to get him. Said ghost had scared several ladies, and it was time to lay him by the heels. One evening, while the constable was treading the town with "steady beat and slow," something white shot past him. The "trap" was an athlete, and he threw his tunic over the fence, doffed his shako, and started out to get that ghost. The ghost kept travelling. For five miles and a-half the man in blue chased the man in v hite, and, suddenly, with one terrific sprint, closed on him, and brought him to bay. Taking a professional grip of the ghostly garments, the "trap" asked him what he meant by scaring everybody. "Well you are a hyphenated fathead'" said a familiar voice. "Don't you know me. |Pat ?" The ghost was a fellow-constable out for a training spin in a white sweater and trunks.

We know an ex-politician, who, twenty years ago, was worth £250,000, who is glad enough now to get the "hand out" of a "pannikin of dust" at sundown. There are men in the "back" of the bush, with bag brains under a fly veil of string and corksbeaten hopeless, helpless men, who belong to a class which will never disappear until the shark, the spieler, and the pint-pot have been wiped out, and the country narrowed down by population. * * • Several convivial spirits chartered a cab in Willis-street the other night, and enjoyed what they called a high old time, driving to Newtown and Kilbirnie. When it came to pay the cabman for their frolic, however, their hilarity took a new and unexpected turn. Half-a-crown was fare enough, they said, and not a penny more than half-a-crown would they pay, and if the cabman didn't like it they would "take it out" of him in double quick time. It was useless to remonstrate, there was no policeman in saght, and the cabman pave up the job in despair. ♦ * « Half-an-hour afterwards, however, he discovered in the cab a silk-lined overcoat that one of the party had left theire. to say nothing of a pocket-book containing several pounds that was in the oocket of the overcoat. The cabman lay low. However, next day, the owner of the coat, in a penitent mood, hunted up his jehu of the orevious night and pleaded his case plausibly. It was all a joke. They intended to pay all the time. The driver was obdurate. He knew nothing of the coat. Finally, the coat-owner struck a bargain. The cabman might keep the money if h<& returned the coat and the papers in the pocket-book. And he did. Now, he is looking for another roysterin,s party with loose overcoats that would be likely to dispute his fare. * * * Australia is seriously contemplating keeping Dr. Dowie outside its territory, under "The Undesirable Immigrants Act." Australia has never before said that a semi-millionaire was an undesirable. If he comes to New Zealand, it is to be hoped that his income will be rated a la Melba and Sandow. * * * Americans are fond of titles — for tiheir daughters. Millionaires can even arrange to have their sons fixed up with "hereditairy" titles — for a consideration. There is only one American gentleman with an English title. This 13 Sir Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun that has allowed "Tommy" to make such magnificent stands against people without maxims. Sir Hiram, of course, is a naturalised Englishman , and is at present flying around in an serial affair of hi® own construction somewhere in the vicinity of Father Thames. A propos of this gentleman, who by the way, is so kind of heart that he will remove a worm from out his path, the late Lord Salisbury s.-.id Mr. Maxim has prevented more men from dyin? of old age than any other man who ever lived. A tribute to the little bullet-spitting device that bears his name.

The police have been keeping an unwinking eye on the professional mendicant ot late why or wherefore that individual cannot undei stand. Nor does he think the espionage logical. One of the profession put the matter thus a few days ago — "It seems to me. we professional beggars aren't held in the respect that is our due We are regarded as leeches, pariahs, parasites, whereas we're as necessary to society as any other class. Nobody abuses the professional people who run gymnasiums, where people exercise their limbs, and yet we're in a similar position, being the professional people who provide respectable people with opportunities of exercising their charitable inclinations. The others afford physical exercise, we provide moral. I don't reckon that I'm an- more beholden to the person who eives me a shilling or a drainer than the crocer is to the man who buys sugar or tea off him. That shilling or dinner is only a fair return for value received. » » * "These people like to be charitable, it gives them pleasant emotions to assist the needy. I provide them with opportunities of gratifying those emotions. The other day a woman accused me of not being grateful for the dinner she had given me. 'Madam '.I said, 'it is you who are ungrateful. You derived enormous satisfaction in indulging A'our charitable propensities, and watching me eat that dinner. It enabled you to feel how chantaJble and good you were, amd yon enioyed -'our self-satisfaction much more than I enjoyed your dinner. Next time, ma'am, give me a, better dinner, and you w ill feel greater satisf action.' The creature actually set the dog on me." # * * "Whisht, the maraudin' blaggards!" Thus a policeman, who noticed a couple of men, with a dray, get through the window of a local shop, open the door from the inside, load the dray, a.nd drive off. He followed them. He arrested them on the wharf. "Ye're the proprietor of the place ye was breakin' into to commit a feeloney, ye saiy. Be the powers yell drive me to the station., so ye will, and tell that yarn to the inspeethor." The "bluecoat" thereupon took the "marauders" to the station, where they both proved their identity. The simple fact was that the proprietor had left the key of his shop-door inside, had slammed the door on leaving, and had been thus forced to make use of the window. He missed the boat he intended to send those goods bv through the zeal of that policeman. * ♦ » Plumbers have a tall time. When they are on the roof a day or two, and you eet a bill for a pound or two, gauced by the time occupied you think the bill is a fair thing. The other day a citizen who began to think that a day and a-half was a good long time for two men and a boy to take in stopping a leak, gently climbed the ladder, and peeped round the corner of a chimney. The boy was sitting on the roof, banging it with much regularity with a chunk of wood. The men were in the hollow between two roofs, engaged in the enlivening plumbing occupation of "two up." As the citizen stepped, on to the roof, one of the gentlemen remarked "Mv word, Bill, you're gttin' better luck to-day than yesterday'" They hadn't even commenced to mend that leak. * * * The hio-hlv-respeeted citizen had purchased a glossy bell-topper, and a beautiful frock coat for the garden party. He had worn the outfit w ith distinction and with pride he divested himself of the garments of respectability, which he duly hung in the household wardrobe. The Fifth of November, with its joyousness, came round. The son of that citizen also came round. He had manufactured a "guy," but he was no tailor. He must dress Mr. Fawkes respectably. He searched the house. Ah, just the thing! A rag Spaniard, seated in a candle-box ooach, clothed in £8 worth of new- wardrobe, looked all right take our word for it, but soapy w ater, falling from an altitude of two stories, projected by an angry man at 5 a.m., isn't exactly the treatment for very nice clothes. There was no soft-soap about the interviewthat eventuated between the boy and hii9 parent. There is a, sore point between the boy and his clothes now. *• * * Peg out a section in New Zealand, in a mining district, apply for it, get a miner's right, and you have a claim practically equal to fee simple over that grounc 1 Do the same thing in Africa — British Africa — and the gold bug comes along, and scoops your claim. Mr. Taylor, a New Zealander from Grisborae, recently found a fine diamond patch outside Kimberley. He was doing well. Along came the diamond " monopolist, emptied him out and put his convict labourers on to work it. This is the country that Taylor helped to save. — for the monopolist who is making an octopus grab at the whole land, with the help of the pro-nigger, pro-consul, and other great Imperialists.

Picture post cards, with Chamberlain's photo thereon, are selling by millions m Kngland He had even before this risen to the dignity of having his pictures sow n broadcast per medium of cigarette packets. * * * Everybody wants his marriage '•noticed" in the papers. The peeress lives to see herself, tiara and all, in the pages of the "Society Crawler," and the bootblack is no less human. One gentleman, whose wardrobe wore a faded appearance, and who brought into the office of a society oaoer a subtle something that pervaded the editor's sanctum, remarked that he wanted his wedding put in the paper. It was duly '"put in." — "A marriage between Mr. A and Miss B. was recently celebrated. The gentleman is well known as a collector of old glass, and the lady is said to have achieved a very distinct and personal note in. her work at Jones's labelling deparment." That par. will be duly gummed in the family records, as showing the aristocratic nature of the union. * * * Man wants but little here below. Because he's too polite To interfere when women strive For everything in sight. Teams of lady rifle shots aie common enough now, and, as ladies don't, as a rule, drink or smoke, or do anything to destroy their nerves, why shouldn't they be a force to reckon with when the wily Chow and the Russian bear look over the skyline? One man who taught his wife to shoot gave up the lessons because she was frightened of mice. We never saw a woman who was as frightened of a man aiS of a mouse. Scores of times, in the African w r ar, the vrouw s '"held off" the troops while safely entrenched behind stone walls. A woman is certainly as much to be trusted with a gun as the average boy youngster, w ith Ins ever ready and to be dreaded pea rifle.

Ireland for ever! The Marquis of Donegal, who is eighty-two years of age, has a son a couple of months old. The Little stranger, whose mother is American, will be the future marquis. * « Burglars are falling pretty low. One broke into a- Carterton dwelling recently, and stole 4£d. Although the person whose house it was is comfortably off, he hals made no disclosures about tliß "valuable jewellery" the burglar missed. * * * Alleged that a new-chum settler has been writing to the Agricultural Department, in Canterbury, on the subject of growing things. He says — "There is a small lake near our farm, and my wife is anxious to breed gondolas. They are an Italian bird, I believe. The climate here is severe, but she thinks she could rear them by keeping them near a stove. Mixed farming is talked of a great deal, and some say our farm is just the thing for wool. I do not want Poland, China, or Shorthorn wool-seed. I would d refer Shanghai or Irish setter, that would shear about twelve pounds to the vine." His needs will be supplied as soon as the w 001-seed has been duly sterilised bv the Department.

Mr. F. DA. C. De L'lsJe, the u ellknown writer of Nev Zealand sporting stories, is just now engaged upon the lyrics and libretto of a musical comedy, entitled "The Girl from Venus," to the order of Mr. John F. Sheridan. The main idea is a novel one, and gives a wide scope to the imagination of the writer. Mr. Sheridan, who saw the first 'let when passing through to the West Coast recently, is said to be highly pleased with the. lyrics, which are novel and clever. Mr. De L'l&le has a further commission from Mr. Sheridan for another musical comedy on the lines of "The Lady Slavey." "

She is a Thorndon lady, and is fast becoming a confirmed somnambulist. One night last week she got up from beside her husband (w ho happened to be awake), and lighting the candle, pioceeded to the place where, the previous evening, she had put aw ay some money. Taking it thence, she went to a chest of drawers in another room, and hid the coins securely. Having done this, she extinguished the light, and returned to bed. In the morning, she was asked by the husband, "How about that money I gave you last evening , is it all lifht?" "Oh," she replied, "that's all right, you know , it is where we nut it." • * * He shook his head and expressed some doubts, hinting something aJbout the recent numerous burglaries, insecure w indows and the negligent housekeeper. Becoming alarmed, the good lady at once rushed to the locality where she had, in his presence, on the previous evening, put the purse. Behold, it was not there! She at once started to upbraid the husband, who repeatedly, but vainly, assorted his innocence. Finally, however, before she had become quite hysterical over her imagined loss, he enliehtened her on the subject, telline her what she had don,e, and showed her, to her great relief, the money quietly reposing in the place she had selected for its greater security.

Refreshing to notice that at last politicians have concluded thai it would be better to use our own timber at home than send it away, and import in its stead timber that is not "a oatoh on, it." Mr. Seddon thinks it is time to stop the w llful vandalism right now. Also, he admitted that there was some force m the argument that we should stop exporting frozen mutton. Still, theie is no avowed intention, to knock the English meat-shop scheme on the head. We might, of course, send our fiozen sheep to England, and import woise stuff from Australia. That would be good New- Zealand trade logic. * *■ * Horrifying to learn that the crinoline of the "sixties" is coming into fashion again. We have seen grandma's, and it is like an exaggerated parrot cage, specially draped with heliotrope silk. Grandma couldn't sit down properly in it, and a special barouche, with a. wide door, had to be used to get grandma m. Also John grandma's footman, had to da a lot of shoving to get the awful horror inside the-barouche door. The spectacle of a Wellington woman getting into a tram-oar with a skirt on the outside, edge of which measured twelve yards is too awful to think of. Also, a Y/elhngton wind is not going to be too kind to the crinoline if it should unhappily come this way.