Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 186, 23 January 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

TIMID women like myself don't feel particularly secure in Adelaideroad just now. I know its perfectly right that traction engines going five miles an hour, and drawing twenty or thiity tons of metal, should occupy the whole of the space now left available on that road. The Council has decreed that it is all right, and who dares say the Council doesn't know .' What with traction engines, piles ot tram rails in the gutter, traffic blocks, frightened horses, holes, smells, and accumulated filth, and absolutely no effort to conduct the traffic, Adelaide road is a veritable inferno, and an out-and-out disgrace to a city notable tor its bungling authorities. * * + Again the Yanks 1 This time a newspaper man has invented a featherless fowl. Says it will save trouble, and it gives the full name of the breeder. Some of these days America will produce a man, who cannot tell a he. After which, the millemum. y. * * Why don't the South African authorities—that is, the "gold bugs"— put a poll tax on colonials ? A notification has been issued to the effect that in future all the personal property of intending settlers in South Africa from Australia will have to pay an ad valorem duty of 10 per cent. * * * Juhus Caesar advertised in a lecent Sydney "Morning Herald" that he would not be responsible for any debts contracted in his name by his wife. About 1950 years ago, more or less, Julius declared his wife to be above suspicion, and apparently he is still struggling to live up to the standard. * * + Splendid times the school children attending a Kalgoorlie (W.A.) school must have had lately. All Hallows was a big school, but a tornado came alonflf and wrecked it without doing the children any damage. I have seen a photograph of the school. Judging by the havoc wrought, the children will have quite a long holiday. * *■ * Paderewski, the hirsute pianist, is said to collect all lis press notices the bad ones equally with the good, and he is proudest when he shows one that says his "piano thumping reminds the listener of cats scrambling along a tin roof at midnight." This he wedges in between two very laudatory notices and calls it the mustard in the sandwich. * * * Australian sheep farmers hate good harvests. Nearly all the struggling "cockies" of the Australian States shear to keep the wolf from the door and the rent paid. If they have a good harvest they stay at home to garner it, and the supply of shearers gives out. Consequence Grass seed in the wool, late clips and bad language among the squatters. * * rYou have noticed, of course, in what a splendid position the tower of the new Town Hall is to catch the smoke from the city Electrical Works' chimney-stack when it blows from the north, and when a southerly wind is in full blast the new power-house chimney will add its quota. Anyway, the tower of the Town Hall will not be a popular spot from which to view the city. * • • A clever Victorian recently invented a machine which purports to take a penny and frank your letter. It took the penny all right, but it didn't stamp the letter. Although the postal authorities might like to let the machine go on working in the present satisfactory manner, the people don't seem to car© about it, so the inventor has been asked to have a look at its "innards," with a view to inducing it to subscribe to a reciprocal agreement. * » •* One of the delights of a Wellington marine suburb is the matutinal parting of a young married couple. The lady stands at the gate, gazing wistfully after her hubby, who gazes wistfully back for about a mile. On mounting: a neighbouring hill, the young man invariably pretends he requires a handkerchief. The flutterin- of the white flag is absolutely the last she sees of him for eight long hours. All the people in the suburb take their time from the white flag.

The latest fashionable ciaze in France is the drinking of hot milk, for the preservation of any beauty the daughters of that country may have. * * *■ "Snuler" Hales, the picturesque war correspondent, who is doing the Balkan bother for London papers, has been made a captain in the Macedonian aimy. My stars! What a gieat deal Britain owes to philanthropist Sir Hiram Maxim. The deeply-reli<nous inventor made it possible for civilising Britain to kill a thousand of the Mullah's followers the other" day, in Somaliland. 'Twas a glorious victory. No, the Mullahs men hadn't got any Maxims. * * * The idea of any public institutions in New Zealand refusing money is surprising. Yet, because they didn't approve oi a domestic episode in the life of a donor two Greytown institutions refused the gift of cheques. Some of these days somebod" wll not a- -rove of Carnegie's business methods, and will refuse t-> have libraries or something. The world grows whiter. * * * There are reasons why so many men prefer to go barefaced. A moustaehed person recently contracted appendicitis, and had that unnecessary cul-de-sac duly pruned. It contained little bits of hair that matched his bp adornment. He had been in the habit of nibbling the hirsute fascinator, and the result was appendicitis. Therefore, O men^ either raze your moustaches, or don t eat theftn. s , The baleful influence of bridge is over all. It has attacked picnic parties. One such party, which intended enjoying the scenery up the Manawatu recently, played the game under a tree all day, and all the way home. Asked what kmd of a time she had, one picnicker said, "Splendid." "Pretty scenery?" "Scenery? I never noticed but I made no trumps five times, and won every time." * * * I notice that the removal or promotion of a constable is still chronicled as a social event in New Zealand. On the West Coast recently a constable was smoke^-socialled. He is recorded as having been "extremely popular. 1 haven't the least doubt in the world that the extreme popularity of constables who should (officially) have no friends is the reason for their removal from the district in which they are so much loved. *. # * "Before and after" illustrated advertisements are awfully quaint. Latest I notice advertises spectacles. The man before he bought Gammon's spectacles is eighty years of age, bald-headed, with white whiskers and a tired look. Having expended eighteenpence in a pair of Gammon's superlative eye helpers, his hair grew, and his whiskers dropped off, a smile came to light, and he is a happy, joyous youth of twenty-five. Try "specs" for that bald spot.