Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 189, 13 February 1904, Page 12

Entre Nous

MR. E. Tregear is good enough to send us a copy of "The Socialist," a Japanese paper, some of which is written m Japanese-English. Some of it is very rich. There is, for msance, an account of an attempted murder. It states that "a rogue extremely a poor man, without work or a wish to get work, but to die with some remarkable or rather worse deed, attempted to assassinate Mr. Thimada, 'coming into the gentleman's study without any introduction.' " The would-be murderer who is uncivilised enough to travel around without his card-case, and won't give notice of his intention, to kill a politician merely because he was hungry, should be put down. So great the politeness of the Jap that had the hungry, would-be murderer sent his card in to the politician, he would, without doubt, have met him half way, and supplied the poor fellow with a good, handy axe or dose of prussic acid, or a weight, ed bamboo club, or something quite as deadly. * * * An Indian doctor, who is kicking about down South, giving advice, and gathering coin, is telling the New Zealand women that they are iust about as poor specimens of human beings as he has seen. He says that the average New Zealand woman eats too much bread and butter, and jam, and drinks too much tea. He further says that the men of this glorious country are the finest creatures he has seen. The fakirs who come to New Zealand have to pander to the sex with the greatest amount of vanity, and there never was any question about the fact that the New Zealand man knows himself to be a very fine fellow indeed. * * * Have you noticed that, although Wellington folk are alleged to hustle, yet in crossing a crowded road the average Wellmetoman absolutely dawdles. Times without number drivers of vehicles yell themselves hoarse shouting at strolling people, and make their horses "curby hocked" by pulling them on to their haunches. This is an appropriate place to mention that electric cars will shortly be running in Wellington. Nuf sed. * * * Wellington is either to have a zoo, or Tom Fitzgerald is having a joke. Anyhow, that enterprising circus emperor has promised Kmg Dick that he will start a menagerie in the Botanical Gardens. The zoo, he says, will be on similar lines to those already established m Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. We wish Tom hadn't said he was going to run it on Sydney Zoo lines. Sydney Zoo possesses many fine animals in dilapidated, "smelling" cages, and one notes that a Brazilian jaguar is credited with being a Chinese panther, or that a galah parrot has got mixed up v> ith the lyre bird label, and so on. We would welcome a zoo. Such a lot of wild animals like horseflesh. We could pick out enough animal food in a morning in Wellington to satisfy the carnivorse of a first-class zoo for a year — and it would be kind to the horses.

One of Wellington's best-know n business men has just returned from a visit to the sunny and steamy North, whither he went for the benefit of his health, which was impaired by a lecent serious illness. He is quite chirpy again, and is busy retailing the following story, which has a curious resurrection, ring about it. Howevei, he takes the sole responsibility for its veracity. "Coming down in the Rarawa," he says 'I had a lovely dream. You know that fine, tall, dark-eyed barmaid in the Central? Well, I thought just as I was finishing my after-theatre cigar, and preparing to mount the stairs for bed, she came to me, and asked if I wouldn't have a nightcap befoie letiring." * * * "Now, just then a powerful Lambton Quay thirst came over me, and I eagerly saicTl would. What would it be ? Oh, a sip of brandy. How did I prefer ithot or cold ? Yes, hot, if it wouldn t be too much trouble. "Not in the least, she sweetly murmured, and with that she tripped off on her sylph-hke Trilbies to piepare the stimulating decoction. It was a happy moment. But, it had a rude aw akening. Just then the steamer's whistle uttered a yell, and I awoke. Didn't I feel mad. What a blooming idiot you are, said I to myself, said I. Why couldn't you say you would have that brandy cold 3 Then you wouldn't have woke up with a disappointed dream on your chest. From th s narrative you may infer that that eminent citizen is feeling pretty spry again. His name" Not for worlds ! * * * Gold-seekers round Coolgardie don't dig any more. They buy a few sheep, and lots of tobacco, and sit round and smoke until killing time. One of the new kind of miners recently killed a goldgetter and panned' oft 240z 7dwt of gold The sheep had licked up that amount of alluvial gold. A horse eats more grass and sand than a sheep, and any horse that would lick up £100 worth of gold a year would earn that amount of leisure. He would be a friend of man indeed. "Table Talk" tells this stoiy —The satirical looking young man with the cast-iron expression sat in the first-class smoking carriage with a choice cigar between his lips. He had bought ifc with his own money, and he was piepared to defend it with his life. Just as the tram w r as starting there was a rustle of silk, and a self-assertive little lady jumped in and sat in the opposite coiner. First she glared with disapproval at the young man behind the cigar, and then ostentatiously let down the window without asking permission of the third person in the carriage, a young man who was facing the engine," and not smoking. Then she coughed. "If the smoke annoys you, madam," said he of the cigar, "I will not take another w hiff till after the next station." "It would be more polite for you to throw your cigar out of the window," she said with acidity, "than to force me „0 get out at the next station." "This is a smoking carriage, madam , and I should have thought that for your own comfort you would be glad to change your carriage at the next stop." "Sir," she said, with flashing eyes, "I am accustomed to have some respect shown me on this line. Are you aware that I am one of the director's wives?" The young man with the cast-iron face smiled a withered smile. "Madam," he said, "if you were the directoi's only wife, I should still smoke in this compartment." She got out at the next station.

Premier Richard John must have suffered from indigestion after the Palmerston North Veterans' dinner last week. The menu comprised such dainties as Tomato soup (dissolved cordite and gunpowder), roast beef and horse-raddish (really trek ox after a drive), Bob Bahadur salad, K. of K. pickles, South African war trifle, jellies aux ammunition mules. ■* # \ The woman's voice was heard at the Kilbirme "tunnel" meeting. The majority of people living in Kilbirnie are those whose small wages drive them out of town. Of course, there are heavilygilt people there that won't read this par. The women do their own housework, and wheel their own go-carts over the hill. We have seen, a frail woman on her knees at the top of Kilbirnie hill with her arms round her gocart to pi event it blowing off the face of the earth., and we have seen women and children blown completely off their feet at the same spot. Men of weight and substance have noticeably wobbled at this particular part of the road, and big draught horses have swerved. Of course, no one wants to spend many thousands of pounds on a go-cart track, but the only outlet for the crowded city is in that direction. * * * An instance of unusual presence of mind on the part of a railway fireman, and unusual dullness of hearing on the part of a woman • A woman at Aramoho was walking along the sleepers with a child in her arms. Brakes were applied, but the grade was steep. The fireman ran along the foot-board of his engine as it reached her, and pushed her out of the way ' It is probably the hist time in New Zealand that a life has been saved in this novel fashion,.

Fred Pirani is chuckling over Tom Wilford's sanguine hopes about an early start with the straightening of the Hutt railway line. In his paper, Fred relates that Thomas wagered a new hat with an unbelieving Huttite that the woik would be started in December or January. The other fellowTihought he had lost his wager when workmen started to take the roof off the Petone railway station. He fancied it time to hedge, and so got a walking tote to take a pound or two on Melwood for the Wellington Cup as a sort of consolation stake. But, it was a false alarm. They were only stripping the roof of the station platform for repairs. Our Tom, therefore, has to buy a new hat for the other fellow, and the walking tote didn't get a draw either, as Melwood was a non-starter for the Cup. * * # Heard in the street. Two welldressed men, who move in the next but one to the highest flight : — "Been to the opera?" "What opera?" "Admiral Crinton!" If J. M. Barrie could have heard ! * * * The colonial unionist working man doesn't exactly "lie low and say nufnn','' if his boss makes him work four or five hours overtime every day without extra pay. The Liberal Government of this country wouldn't tolerate an iniquity of this kind, not they. For some months past the staff of the Wellington Money Order Office have worked each night until 10 o'clock without extra remuneration. Their life is simply a dull grind from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. Curiously, Government servants are about the only body of workers in the country having no redress at the hands of an employer that redresses all other internal wrongs, and endeavours to carry reforms throughout the earth. It is a striking evidence of inconsistency. It is more — it is unmitigated sweating. » * • A prisoner whom Nature intended to be a politician turned up in the Supreme Court the other day. Asked if he had anything to say before sentence was passed, he remarked that his only consolation was that one wise man on the bench could undo much of the mischief wrought by twelve idiots in the jury-box. His sentence was light. * * # Eketahuna has its romances. Just lately a bright, buoyant youth, who was suspected of having an ardent matrimonial longing for the village pearl, disappeared. On the table in his dormitory was found a note saying that he couldn't stand the awful love-gnaw in his chest any more. When they read the note he would be far away, lulled into the sleep that a bullet induces with such workmanlike rapidity. Eketahunians, sad at the thought of that young life being cut short so untimely, strode forth to find the body, and give it decent burial. All day they searched. Nothing daunted, they dragreed the river shuddering dankly at the thought of a weed-trimmed corpse. As they were taking their number two shudder, they heard a snore. Starting aghast at the solemn sound, they followed the reverberating atmosphere. There was the "suicide," "dead to the world," surrounded by defunct "marines," and clasping in his hand a corkscrew. Coffin countermanded.

Predicted that there is a possibility of the Russian bear being able to gather Australia — and incidentally New Zealand — in as a jewel for the Czar's crown. Reasoned that Australia's population is mainly composed of town dwellers, who would fight fitfully for five minutes and then "'Andsuo'" Predicted likewise that labour problems would be solved by Russia in half-an-hour by the coercion of king working man and the rule of officialdom. If the Russian bear chewed off so much honey, he'd probably eat it himself without Australian help. British boats wouldn't be able to take Australians or New Zealanders fast enough out of a country held by the Russians Britishers will never be ruled by Russians or Japs. We believe they'd rather make a hole in the sea than meekly submit to such a hideous fate. Probably spite. Rumoured that anti-fre.ehold campaigner "Tommy Taylor recently bought a freehold farm "on which he hopes to make a competency." Some of these days it will be found that "Tommy's" teetotal character is blackened by the fact that he consumed a glass of ginger wine for an infantile stomach-ache. * * * It is a noteworthy c rcumstance that the to-be-released convicted husbandpoisoner, Florence Maybnck, is torbidden to write a book, go on the stage, or draw attention to herself. It has been the fashion for notorieties to do such things. William Stead made good copy out of his pnsom experience. bo did William Richardson, the prohibitionist of Auckland. Remember how Piper Findlater, the man who won the V C at Dargai, was immediately collared" by an entrepreneur, so that he could play the "Cock o' the North on a music-hall stage, the most curious thing being that the authorities didn t forbid such an act. One of the very few celebrities who didn't, go on the stage, although he was approached with bribes, was De Wet, the Flying Dutchman. You remember how the once-released Sydney wife-poisoner, Dean, was adored of the public during the short interval of freedom dunng which he ran a ferry boat ? It seems to be a necessary injunction in the Maybrick case. * * * A West Coast parson last week, who had commenced his stirring pulpit oration as if he were good enough for at least three hours, said "Brothers and sisters, I would commend to your notice Ugh!" And he began doing a break-down, pounding violently at the atmosphere with his manuscript, suddenly dropped it on to the inviting head of a worshipper, and fled down the pulpit steps six at a time. "Buz-z-z! sang the swarm of bees that had sought a habitation in the pulpit. The sight of a local bee-farmer seizing the collec-tion-plate, and banging it with a hymnbook to "charm" the bees, will be treasured as a memory bv several people who were there. » * * It happened in a toney Wellington household while Fitzgerald's Circus was here the other day. The family servant came in from a visit to the matinee performance, carrying the pride of the household, a young gentleman some fouiteen months old. It was at once apparent that an unusually exciting event had occurred. "Oh, ma'am," she «aid "George spoke this afternoon for the first time." "Really! What did he say ? " "Why, I was showing him the animals, and he made me stop in front of the monkeys, and he clapped his hands and said, 'Papa' Papa real plain." * * * * A lady, tl c epideimus surrounding whose dexter optic appeared to be closely related to long-dead beef, told a Southern magistrate lately that her husband had done it. The husband said he loved her with all his might, and if she would go chopmng "splintery" wood she must expect black-eyes. It* was true that, although he loved her to distraction, he had inserted an advertisement in the paper that he would be responsible for no debts contracted by her. and it was also true that she drank more than he did — for he was a o-ood moral man, and full of love for her. She had a bad temper, while his own was angelic. Whereupon, the magistrate granted her request for a separation. Poor, wronged man. He is now so desperate that he'll commit suicide, or sign the pledge, or do something dreadful. * * * A young Wellington man, who has just planked down his £40 like a Briton and taken out an auctioneer's license, held his first cattle sale at Otaki last week. A goodly number of Maoris were there, of course, and the new knight of the hammer waded right into the fray without reading the conditions of sale as provided by law. A Maori who has attended cattle sales at Otaki for many years, dug him in the waistcoat "Here, young ferrer, you forget read te Bible . you no make it te pray befoie you start'" And the auctioneer rooted out the conditions of sale, which be doesn't yet know by heart, and "prayed."

At the Hutt Court 'John Jinks, chaiged with riding a bicycle on the tootpath. Where is John Jinks? "Not here, yer Woiship." Upnses a young man. "Who are you?" "John Jinks, junior, yer worship." "Well, what do you want?" "Oh, mv father doesn't like appearing in court, you see, so he sent me along to plead not guilty. He said it would be all right." "Ten shillings and costs." * * * A peculiar nervous disease has attacked the men in a business office in town. An observer will notice that clerks and others employed there suddenly, without warning, start violently, exclaim "What's that?" and turn pale. Every little sound causes them to add figures furiously, and the passage of the office mouse across the floor makes twelve pens travel with lightning speed. Simply explained by the fact that the 'boss is now wearing a pair of rubber-heeled^ "sneakers," and every movement in that office is explained by the clerks in. the ungrammatical assertion "That's Counsel, in the ordinary run of business, often make distressful remarks in court. Witnesses and prisoners are prohibited by law from jumping over the barriers to "land" the men of law. However, a Southern lady, the other day, if she didn't actually smack counsel in the face, so there, held out a horrible threat. He was for "the other side," and made remarks of a tantalising nature. The lady, with an eldritch scream, bounded forth like a gladiatrix, and "scruff ed" the cheeky lawyer yelling "Me and my family was the means of getting your father eleven votes at last election, but it's not another vote will he ever get from us." And it may be pointed out that the politician in question romped into the House on a majority of five last election. f- * * A much-oliT e-branched Wellington mother, intent on keeping the family commisanat up to aotive service form, betook herself to a local pork butcher's shop the other day. "Fowls, mum? Yes, mum. Certainly, mum. Boiling or roasting, mum?" asked the purveyor. The lady desired to know the difference between the roasting poultry and the boiling variety. "From threepence to sixpence is the difference," said he of the knife and steel. "No, I don't mean that Mr. Chops. Why should the roasting fowl be dearer than the boiling one. "Well, you see, mum, the 'roasters' is young and tender and delicious. And the 'boilers' (gracefully the poultryman slid out of the dilemma); wel'," with an air as if he was highly recommending the birds, "they're elderly." And the lady with the family, who purchased "boilers," knows now he spoke the truth. Gimme that axe !