Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 189, 13 February 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

SUNDAY as a "day of rest" doesn't earn its title when the clanging of church bells disturbs your beauty sleep. I don't know what church-goers want with bells. If they desire to attend church they'll do so, bell or no bell. A Timaru church recently thought that, as everybody had a watch, they could dispense with the bell. They sold it after forty years' service to the Town Council for £10, to be used as a fire-bell! We live in a utilitarian age. * * * Quaint advertisement in London "Era," the theatrical paper — -"Lost, by professional lady, purse containing two diamond rings and one pound in gold. Finder may keep diamonds,' etc. All that glitters is not precious. * * * Sir John Moore, whom most of us know because they "buried him darkly at dead of night," had a daughter. She still lives, and is a hundred years old. Anyone who can cast her memory back to Corunna possesses more than ordinary interest. * * * A romantic and newly-married youth tells me he doesn't play billiards any more. A pair of blue eyes keeps him home, he says. Curiously, this morning I heard that a pair of black eyes was keeping a male citizen away from his office. * * • The wail of a tired country newspaper — "The wind bloweth, the water floweth, the farmer soweth, the subscriber oweth, and the Lord knoweth that we are in need of our dues. So come a-runnin', ere we go gunnin'. This constant dunnin' gives us the blues." * # * Birmingham (Joe Chamberlain's town) has an anti-corset league, numbering ten thousand girls, and almost as many boys. It is believed that the boys are allowed to join in order to "support" the girls. The girls must have some kind' of substitute for their lost embracers. » * # The "fertility of the unfit." A Gloucestershire murderer, son of a decadent father, was the youngest of a family of eighteen. His victim, a servant girl, also a decadent, belonged to a family of fourteen. Both belonged to the labouring class, the man's father earning 12s a week, and the girl's father 11s. * * * "A fish diet strengthens the brain. I suppose amateur fishermen eat their fish, don't they ? What a splendid thing for the imagination fish food is. It is the alleged phosphorous in the fish that is supposed to feed the brain. The average fisherman will possibly get lots of phosphorus to go on with — some day. * * * Miss Ada Crossley's pianist, Mr. Percy Grainger, of the long hair and the soulful, hungry longing in the eyes, is the son of a Perth (Westralia) architect. Percy was to have adorned the pater's calling, but, having heard that Paderewski and other young fellows made more money at that instrument, he threw down his compasses and went in for octaves. * * * The turkey's stuffed with sage — The savant's blithe and perky. Ere night, we will engage, The sage is stuffed with turkey. * * * A bit of matrimonial news from North. The son in one family married the daughter in another. Then the son's father married his son's sister-in-law, and, not to be outdone, the father's younger son has now married a younger sister-in-law of his brother. According to this amazing matrimonial puzzle the brothers have married their aunts, are their own uncles, and are brothers-in-law to their father! * * * Henry Lawson, who is happily able to use his talented pen again, was 1 always artistic. Many Wellingtonians remember him painting the fence in front of the Government Buildings. Some years since, "Harry" went to Westralia, chopping wood and painting houses. Now, if some people who are not Lawsons, but think so, would take to wood-chopping, and stick to it, it would be brighter and better for writers on the look-out for a crust.

What's in a name p Mrs. Lusty won the married women's race at the Woollen Company's picmc. "Tay Pay" O'Connoi , of ' M.A P " fame, is going to stait a half-penny paper in London. I bebeve he has decided not to call an\ specific column "Sun-spots." * * * This new toast, "To the Ladies," is finding favour among army officeis — Our aims your defence, Your arms our lecompense, Fall in' Several Wellington doctois, who have been away during the vaccination boom, aie hastening back with all speed. Those who were lucky enough to be here will be able to afford that long-de-layed trip to Europe now . One of the favourite hymns sung at weddings is "Fight the good fight." I always think it savours of flat-irons and bioken furniture, spanked olive branches, and apneals to magistrates. What about "There is a Happy Home" ? * * * Solemnly said that Mrs. Crossley has never heard her daughter, Ada, sing a song right through. Tears bedim the honest eyes of Ada, and get down into her throat. Mrs. Crossley doesn't dare go to a Crossley concert, for fear of breaking the show up. * ♦ ■» I recently heard of a man who had a constant horror of being buried alive. He always pinned a visiting card to his sleeping suit, on which was written "I'm only in a trance. Don't bury me." In time to come the danger of living burials will be past. People will be educated up to cremation. * ■¥■ * France compels the parents of children to have them vaccinated before their first birth anniversary. At eleven years of age they must be punctured again, and at twenty-one the doctoi earns another ten centimes. Paris, like Gloucester, Jenner's native place, has a statue of the discoverer of the alleged smallpox preventative. King Dick, at the South African Veterans' Association Dinner, held at Palmerston North • — "They were the boys of the bull-dog breed, sons of the sea. And, an enemy coming here would receive short shrift." How the world smiled when Kruger got off his sentiment about sweeping the British Army into the sea' Dare anyone smile at King Dick's short shrift p * » ■» Practically oertain that Lord Ranfurly's successor will be either a soldier or a sailor. Probably a rather distinguished soldier. They have no need of them in the Aimy. Curious thing that, with a fat Army list to choose from, Colonel Sir George Clarke, Victorian Governor, should have to be sent for to assist on the Army Reform Committee. ¥■ ■* * A Southern writer asserts that a child of eight died as a result of vaccination, and that another child had an arm amputated from the same cause. Still, the writer doesn't mention time, place, name, or anything definite, and the probability is that "somebody told Mrs. Jones that Mrs. Smith had heard Mrs. Brown say that her brother's child had heaid a rumour to' that effect in school " A person who writes on such a subject wants to be a very Gradgnnd for facts. * * # Theie was a young lawyer named Pique Who sported a prominent bique, An angry old client Grew very defiant, And gave the proboscis a twique. * ■/■ * Doctors who- examine people for life insurance always ask one what one's grandfather's age was. I know a man whose grandfather died at the age of 102. The doctor looked serious when he said so What did he die oop"f p " asked he. "Well, I suppose he thought it was a fair thing'" said the man. Reminds me that quite recently a centenarian farmer in Australia, was thrown from a young horse and killed. Wonder will it affect his grandchildren's chances of life insurance ?