Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 193, 12 March 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

RUMOURED that the "severe cold" from which a Wellington City Councillor is alleged to have been suffering, and which confined him to his house, was really a seveiely-spramed ankle he picked up by falling down on one of our beautifully spoke-shaved footpaths. I'm hoping to see that particular piece of footpath made passable. * * * A Home brewing corporation, sued for selling arsenical beer, counter-claims £300,000 from the chemists who supplied the sulphuric acid that contained the arsenic that poisoned the beer. This is absolutely too delicious to comment on. * • * The Wellington clergyman who took for his text last Sunday "He giveth His beloved sleep," remarked, as he looked at three bald-headed worshippers scattered through the congregation, that the Lord appeared to have a special love for his particular congregation. * * * An eminent art connoisseur looked into McGregor Wrights the other day, and saw an impressionist landscape. He peered closely into it, stood back, glared, smiled, and finally said enthusiastically, "By George!" "No, sir, by the late J. M. Nairn," said the wee McGregor. * * * Jb. P. who visit gaols bewaie' An English magistrate, who is a military officer of the highest rank, has been sued by a female convict for breach of promise. Alleged that the visiting J.P. tendered his proposal per proxy of the gaol governor. The J.P. merely says it's a lie, and the lady has been advised not to proceed. » * • lam sorry to see that Mr. Field's Juvenile Smoking Suppression Bill, now in operation, is about as effective as a porous plaster on a shell-hole in a sh-p's armour. Everywhere the juvenile still smokes the pernicious cube of sawdust, and with unconcerned openness. The law is observed equally with the anti-expectoration ordinance — that is, not at all. • * * I wonder what the Russian Bear is foing to do when the Japanese Monkey as walloped him ? The bear isn't going to be popular in a whipped country seething with Nihilists, the new socialism and enlightened revolutionary students. The Bear has bumped with startling effect against the monkey, and lost fur, but the coming internal hurt will go deeper than bruin's furry hide. • • * The fog was so dense in a Wairarapa town last Thursday that a Wellington prohibitionist walked into an hotel, believing it was a milk emporium. When seen he was employed in engulphing a pint of ale, being under the impression that it was a glass of soda and milk. He drank several of these "milks" before he found out hisi mistake, and the fog didn't lift any that day. » * * Some of these bright mornings a few passengers will fall through the floors of some of Wellington's Corporation 'busses. These vehicles have done so much sendee that they only lack a good heavy kick to go to pieces. The working of a 'bus with a broken spring doesn't cause anybody the least concern. You see, the electric cars will be running almost immediately. • # # Ex-Commonwealth Governor-General Marquis of Linlithgow has been saying that he has given up all thoughts of political and social achievements, is able to enjoy his food and a glass of wine, is proud of his daughter, and will visit Australia again some day. Says also he won't forget the people of the great dry country. They won't forget that the salary he got was considered insufficient for an immensely wealthy peer to sustain his dignity on. • • « A patent food organisation is advertising in Australia that "New Zealand footballers have stalwart forms and rosy cheeks," indicating, of course, that they have been "raised" by the said f>atent food. To arrive at New Zeaand footballing perfection the average Australian, must give his digestive apparatus absolutely nothing to do by taking food artificially digested before it gets to him. Quaint logic.

It I write that comedy that has been thieatemng me with biam disease foi fire and forty yeais, I'm going to call it The Coik^crew " It's di awing povrei will be beyond question. Di. Leyds, who used to exeit his imagination in the ciu&e of Krueer, is at piesent at Moscow. Di. Leyds has such a respect for the truth that he wouldn't go near it. Seem.s to me that Russophobia won't lose its virulence with the medico on hand to treat the disease. «■ * * Although it wasn't officially announced that it was a case of twins, that disastei had happened. The small Newtown kiddy asked the doctor if it was true and the doctor said it was. ' I think I'll go and tell mother," said the boy. but the doctor grabbed him, and held him prisoner until he was swept off to school. * • * Some Wellington builders have discovered another economical way of still further reducing the cost to themselves of building a £500 house worth (in timber and labour) £150. Foimerly, they inserted pitched felt between the lining and the weatherboards. Now they use the oil paper that is commonly found m parcel packing. * ♦ ♦ The tram horses that will be sold when the electric cars are running, if not dead of old age, will be hardened to every kind of sight and sound that could possibly affect equine nerves. I noticed the astounded looks of several dozen horses when they first saw the telescopic platform on which the electric fitters are shot up to the top of the tram poles. On the whole, they like the telescope better than the tractionengines. * * * Thus, among other "jabberwocky" veiselets, a writer in London "Daily Chronicle" — "Beware the gorgey Balph, my son, The voice that charms, that pleasing style, Beware the Joejoe biid, and shun All Seddonacean guile." » * IT Seeing that we have universal penny letter-postage, and have recently obtained penny paper postage, I think something ought to be done to cheapen telephonic messages. I rung up from a suburban bureau at 11 o'clock one recent night, and was astounded when the bureau-master mildly asked me for 3s for half-a-minute's conversation. It was a week-day, and the bureau-master hadn't gone to bed. The price to poor people who may want a doctor is prohibitive. Of course, the bureaumaster must have been, within his legal right, or he wouldn't have dared to make the charge. * * ♦ Fashion's latest fad is, I suppose, quaint and interesting. It consists in collecting liqueur bottles which are queerly shaped, and setting them as ornaments in one's drawing-room. The presence of "dead marines" in one's "holy of holies" isn't, in my opinion, a certificate as to character. To get your ornaments you have first to empty them, asd the lady who has an array of absinthe, chartreuse, cherry brandy, and other liqueur sarcophagi scattered around merely advertises the fact that either her husband is not a prohibitionist, or that she's on visiting terms with the hotelkeeper.