Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 185, 16 January 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

SOME people have a round-about way of getting information. A man in New Zealand has written to the Agent-Genoral in London enquiring the best means of gett jig from New Zealand to Uganda. The usual method of asking Mr. Seddon doesn't seem to have occurred to him. * • ♦ Cheerful advertisement from a Yorkshire paper — "For sale, undertakers business, as a going concern insanitary district; death rate, 23.75 per cent, above average for the U.K. Only one competitor." Glorious chance! * * * Interesting to learn, that the late Phil May presented the first copy of his splendid ""Guttersnipes" to Aimee Moore, whose friend he was. More interesting to learn that the inscription lead "From 1 P.M. to 1 A.M." * • * They manage these things better in New South Wales. A man was recently sent to gaol for eighteen months tor cruelly flogging a boy. People are awarded three months in New Zealand for burning boys with lighted ti-tree. The shame of it ! * * * There was a deal of sneak-thieving from safes and cupboards during the holidays. People heard about it, and left plum puddings and things where thieves could get them without trouble. The trouble came afterwards. All chemists supply it. * * * "Man in his time plays many parts. 1 ' List to this "ad." in the "Lady," one of London's fashion journals • — 'Young gentleman desires engagement as nursery governess or lady-nurse, one or two children. Experienced." I wonder it he consents to wear caps? * * * A Wellington girl complains bitteilv of the "awful amount of red tape" m ordinary banking transactions. She tells me she took an unsigned cheque to a local bank the other day, and the horrid teller refused to cash it. "Just as if I was dishonest!" she indignantly said. * * * He stooped to kiss her hands, and she Was much annoyed thereat, It made her mad to think that he Should stoop so low as that ! * * * A Chinaman, who is respectfully alluded to bv a Manawatu paper as Mr. Kum Lee, found a reptile among hi? latest shipment of bananas. It is five inches long half-an-inch thick, white, yellow, and black, and has hundreds of legs. Sounds to me like a piebald New Zealand centipede. * * * An American actor, who recently returned to America, is saying in loud type, "that Australia and New Zealand are as poor as mud." According to the man from the great and glorious Republic, we are able to exist on the money American actors lose here. I expect that particular actor paid his New Zealand bill, or did some extraordinarily ridiculous thing of that sort, and is consequently annoyed. * * ♦ A novel way of paying holiday expenses. A party of ladies and gentlemen, who hold high positions in Christchurch, are touring the West Coast of the South Island, giving concerts as they go. Opens up a host of possibilities. Mr. Seddon might sing "The Wearing of the Creen," admission one shilling, children half-price, when he tours or the average traveller learn up a song and dance wherewith to pay his hot-water bill at Rotorua. A lady, whom I should be very sorry to think would be guilty of an untruth, tells me of a "pearl" of a housemaid she still possesses. The lady's husband is a journalist, and works at home. One recent day Arabella came to her employer (I do not now use the word "mistress" for obvious reasons), and commenced : "You give me 15s a week Mrs. — , and " Mrs. cut her short -"Well, it's all I can afford, and if you don't like it " "Oh, don't misunderstand me," said Arabella. "I was going to say that I'll be willing to take ten shillings a week until Mr. gets work." There's devotion for you.

It is not often a person gets fined for "kicking the bucket." Still, a Napiei gentleman, who had been toying with several pints of ale, was recently fined 10s for having damaged a bucket, the property of the Government, by kicking it. Government buckets are surely expensive utensils. After tiying to ruin the country with drought, Nature is smiling like anything in, New- South Wales. A Yass giil wntes me that her father has been served w ith a notice from the Government ordering him to cut his wheat crop at once. It interferes with the telegraph wiros that run across his paddocks. « * * Little Harry Bedford, M.H.R., who has been vigorously protesting against "the drink" in the country, is reported to have referred to moderate drinkers as "despicable cuis and skunks." Even "Tommy" Taylor wouldn't dare to classify the best friends of prohibition under that head. But Harry is young. He w ill have lots of time to ponder over things after next election. * * *■ King Dick expressed a belief at Nelson, the other day, that there would be no war between Hussia and Japan. I expect he has pacified the straining dogs of war somehow. In, the rare event of his pacificatory measures being unheeded, and the countries becoming locked in deadly strife, Mr. Seddon thinks the Russian bear, who has been hibernating u- Manchuria will be compelled to wake up, and put his trunk over the border. * * * The American invasion of New Zealand ' A Yankee is now in the colony buying up aJI the flax land he can lay his* hands on. Says his firm will take all the flax New Zealand can supply for five years. I should think if the land is worth at from £5 to £10 per acre — the price the Yankee is paying — to the American, it is worth keeping. We will have our washing done, hotels ke^t, and land owned by TJncl^ Sam directly. * * * They manage wife-beateis very well in Germany. When a man is convicted of beating his wife, he is allowed to continue his work, is looked after by the police, and arrested every Saturday and locked up until Monday moraine: when he is again delivered over to his employer. His wages are given to his wife. If he won't work he is taken to gaol, w here he has to work harder than outside. The more one studies this plan, the more sensible it seems.