Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 196, 2 April 1904, Page 12

Entre Nous

HOW these parsons love one another. A propos of the Soots Church, you know. Parson Doull, of Bulls, seems to have been awaiting an opportunity to protect et eiybody and everythi^ - by jumping to a very hasty conclusion and demanding that the public who subscribed the money for its erection, without any assistance from him, should not see their good red gold go into a building which "it seems is to be converted into a music and dancing hall." Who said so? Where did Mr. Doull get his facts? Why did he jump to such a conclusion? What good has he done? • • * Mr. Pat Dwyer has not yet stated tl at he intends to make a dancing or a music hall out of the Scots Church. Mr. Dwyer, if he desired, has a perfect right to use a structure he has bought for any legal purpose he likes, and there doesn't appear to be anything serious in having music, even in an exchurch. One question suggests itself. If the trustees of any church of any ether denomination, and having no Mr. Thomson among them, made a deal in. property, would Mr. Doull have found it necessary to arise and pour out the a >als of his wrath? • * * The late Duke of Cambridge had some sound sense. He didn't marry a royal lady. His sons, who have just been made kni" 1^- are the sona of an actress, the talented Miss Farebrother who was prohibited, for some stupid reason, from using the titular distinction of "duchess." 'Twas a love match, anyhow, and "Umbrella George" never regretted it. Seeing that Georo^e did this unroyal thing, ne is not buried with the great dead, but now rests in Kensal Green Cemetery, alongside his wife, Mrs. Fitzgeorge. He will be just as comfortable there as at Frogmore or Westminster. • • • The fact that Messrs. Storer and Meek sent along a cheque for £5 5s to the Fire Brigade, "for their pluqk and bard work" in the recent fire reminds us that the money so sent is not cut up and given to the firemen. It goes to the firemen's club, and the qr^llant fellows get a lot of joy out of it in unison. Reminds us also that the fireman who does the better work, and 1 who is the least heard about in public*, is the chap who is out of sight at the fire, and that it has become an axiom with fire captdns, if praise is to be given, to serve it out in equal shares to every man engaged. The men do as they are told.

The men who get in at the back of a burning building, where the crowd can't see them, and walk from room to room putting out fire as they go, don't get any cheers. No one sees them. But, tlie man who is pouring cold water through a window from outside the slieain being stopped by the wall of one room maybe, is looked upon as the hero. Both are following instructions, and both, from a fireman's point of view are entitled to like praise. Just because of the tact of the heads of the Wellington Fae Brigade, there is no jealousy. The man who drives the steamer is as 1 big a hero to his officer as the man who clambers through a burning window. * • • Another point. Fear is infectious. Although the heads of the Brigade knew that there were enough explosives and lubammable material to blow every fireman and half the street away at the Drug Company's fire, the firemen didn't know. Firemen are only human, and it lequnes a nerve stronger than anything possessed by ordinary men to face what seems certain annihilation. Discipline, tact, and faith in each other, are very necessary among all branches of the Fire Brigade, and Wellington is lucky because it has all three embodied in its fire-fighting service. Mr. Tom BalHnger was fire-fighting long before his hair turned grey. He's leen captain of the fire police in Wellington, and is now lieutenant of that gallant band. We recently ascended to the roof of Mr. Ballinger's building in Victoria-street, just to see the distance between th© Drug Company's wrecked piace and Boulcott-street, where Mr. Ballinger lives. The distance, measured along the air line by the Lance tape is seven hundred feet, and a shell from one of the explosions drooped through the Ballinger roof. If the shell hadn't fallen through the Ballinger roof, seven-ty-people would have laughed themselves unconscious, for the cylinder contained nitrous oxide gas, the element that causes blissful unconsicousness to the yank of the tooth puller. A cylinder entire is 2ft 6111 long, and would fit an eight-inch gun if a gun had any use for it • • * Five hundred gallons of gas are squeezed into it, the pressure being" 18001b to the square inch. It, however, undergoes a pressure of 30001b to the square inch before leaving the factr ry. This is why the amusing things hurtled about on the ni^ht of the fire when warmed up to their work. The gas expands as it might do in a patient, but it doesn't make anybody laugh at a fire. Funny thing is that, of the three shells that shot into the atmosphere and were found, none fell into the crowd, but all chose roofs. People tv ho watched the display from a distance aver that the missiles were visible and red hot while travelling but the manager of the Consolidated Dental Company who has a strong-room full of them, tells us the gas doesn't ign'te, but only expands. Maybe the ct linders (one of which was picked up whole) carried a little array of sparks with them. It is a curious coincidence that one of them should single out a fire policeman's house.

Quaint variety paragiaphs are common enough in the best-regulated papers, but the notes of a country correspondent to his paper this week have a smile in. them. He starts out by saying that Miss Allen was married to Miss Campbell, but regrets to have to record the death of Mr. Fleming, who had been long ill, and was happily released. The Salvation Army having held a festival on Sunday and Monday, Enoch Barnes ■was charged w.th drunkenness, and sent to the Porirua Asylum, and an old identity in the peison of Mr. Hooper passed away. All this without taking a breath. If ladiesi are going to be the cause of such catastrophes, celibacy is bound to grow in favour. * « • Cartertonians turned pale when, a week since, they discovered an estimable citizen suspended from the crossarm of a street lamp. Thoughts of suicide rushed through their minds lint 1 they saw, in the mirk of the evening, that the supposed corpse had several very healthy kicks and a couple of dozen stentorian yells left in it. Procuring a ladder, a heroic citizen detached the "hanger-on," and found that it was their esteemed lamp-lighter. Tender enquiry elicited the information that the illuminator was engaged in applying a vesta to the lamp while seated on his restive charger, and that the charger broke into a "cup" pace and left his rider "suspended." Reports from the Wairarapa suggest that the charger has been relegated to the meat cart, and that the hanger-on now ascends the dizzy lamp-post per ladder. * * * Even when the jovial miner Is not lost or gone before, He's as dead as Julius Caesar, 'Cause his "dream of Me is ore." * * * Smart confidence dodge doing good business m a series of New Zealand towns. A well-tailored gentleman calls on you with some lovely suitings. You deposit ss, the rest in instalments. Few days later a tailor calls, who "makes up" gentleman's own materials. You have the lovely cloth you bought the day before yesterday, and the tailor takes it away to "make it up." When you have longed for your suit for a few weeks you begin to lose faith in travelling tailors, and conclude that the pair of precious scoundrels are contenting themselves with their numerous 5s deposits. New Zealand is getting known even in the provinces of England. A Cheltenham (Gloucestershire) pa-per remarks that at one of the national schools (where Bible-reading is usual) the youngsters were asked to complete the text beginning, "These wait all upon Thee." Please, sir, I know!" a handwaggmg boy ejaculated. "Well? "That Thou mayest give them meat from New Zealand." It would be interesting to hear the biblical teacher's pronunciation of the simple words "in due season." For many years in a Gar-den-town church the bucolic bridegrooms invariably asserted to the bride. "With all mv worldly goods I thee and thou." The parsonical moaning of the words "I thee endow" sounded like that to the chawbacon ear.

Little knots of insurance men, with wan faces and hands deep-dipped in pockets, and features steeped in dejection, dodged around and looked at the Drug Company's gutted block last Friday. A Lanoer strolled down Jervois Quay, and found l several hundred people who didn't appear to have any object in life smoking pipes and gloating over the chemical-tinted pavements. Seared firemen, with rag-swathed fingers, and not much eyebrows, panted aiound, and looked as if they ought tobe in bed. Everything proclaimed the face that the fire had been one of unusual magnitude. „ ♦ • A stranger from the country meandered into the crowd. "What's up?" he asked. Nobody answered him. It seemed too absurd. He gazed upon the gutted building for about five minutes. "What's the crowd looking at?" he asked. "The fire!" snapped a gentleman in dirty trousers. "Where?" asked the man from the country. "There!" said the dirty man. "Well, I'm blowed, it's burnt!" he exclaimed. He had made a discovery. * * * The detonations of exploding chemicals were heard on Thursday night in the farthest suburbs. A man and his wife were on a verandah in far Kilbirnie. "Bang!" "Sounds like a nine-inch gun !" said the man, who had heard such things before. "D'you think they're firing at an escaped convict, dear?" asked the wife. The idea of a warder chasing a convict with a 1-ton gun appeals to us. * • * Somebody asked Mark Twain not lone since for his opinion about "Elijah" Dowie. "Well," said Mark, with his characteristic drawl, "I expect I'll bump up against him some day — probably in the next world. I don't know which place it will be in, but whichever it is, f'nr going to the other — I want society, not company." • » * They were discussing Irish wit and humour, and the only Irishman there was annoyed that impossible "bulls" were always attributed to his countrymen. He was dejected, this poor Irishman. "Bedad, it's nothin' but bad luck I've had lately, and no time at all for fun. Sure misfortunes never come singly. The very day I lost me poor wife I bruk a new pipe !" And he buried his flushed face in another pint. • • • Here is a truism from the> pen of that popular actress, Miss Beatrice Lamotte, in the 1904 "Arthurian Annual": — Chorus girl, Good as gold, Back row, Growing old, Loving mother, Faithful wife, Chorus girl All her life. Chorus girl, Sly, coquette, Wine, supper Cigarette, Flighty husbands, Near and far, Chorus girl, Now a star.

Some dear little boys, who were alternately building houses with jarxah blocks, in Adelaide-road, and throwing stones at anything that attracted them, at last put a jam-tin on, a fence, and had cockshies at it. One boy, who wasn't a very good shot, heaved a stone through a window. A by-stander, who witnessed the act, chased the kiddy, and brought him to a standstill. "Did you break the window?" he asked. "Yes," replied the culprit. "Why did you run away?" "I was just runnin^ home to get the money to pay for it. That boy will get into Parliament some day. • » » A good thing is related of a local r>arson who came in fiom the Hutt bv train the other day. First-class was i bit crowded and so he took a secondclass seat. A couple of settlers, in the no sy stage of liquor, sat next him, and polishm? off a flask of whisky. "Mv friend," ventured the Rev. Mr. Blank, in his mildest manner, "in all my life I have never spent a shilling on that stuff." The man with the flask koked him square in the face, screwed on the stopper, and, returning the flask io his pocket, said, with great emphasis, "Oh, indeed. Well you neednt think you're going to sponge on me old chap!" It broke the oar up. • * * Education in New Zealand is free, secular, and compulsory. Interesting to have seen, the author of the following "compelled" to learn. Auckland s Mayor got it : —"Mr. Mayor the Hon. E. Mitchelson Sirs City Council I hai Got permit and hafe shifted the Billden That you Complan of In Cardent with the Billden Inspecter orders this I naf But the drain is not fineshed the water will Be Laid on to morow to This Billden if you wood hould this over four one week I wood Be four Graitfull lo There was a young heiress called Rooker, And a lawyer called Luke tried to ''hook" her ; But the heiress was shrewd, Though her question was rude— '■Do you look at my looks, Luke or lucre?" • * • Dear Lance,— Should the excitable and abusive Prophet "Elijah" visit New Zealand, let us hop? that Christchurch will not take him to its bosom as it did Clampett and Worthmgton. Worthmgton! Oh, where is he? And Clampett 1 Passed from this vale of tears and beers into New York. Present writer met Clampett in Westraha, in the days when all sorts of wild cats flourished there. He had then tacked an "i" to the end of his name to soften and Italianise it. Notwithstanding that, he had a brogue you could cut with an axe. At that time poor Sullivan, or Clampett, alias Clampetti's, star was on the wane. It was a precarious 1 velihood he got by giving Sundn-tr night concerts. His rendering ol "The Holy City," in a rich, fruity voice, was unappreciated by a people whose minds were concentrated on the rise and fall of shares in the "Amalgamated Extended Go-bungs." — Yours, J. A. K.

Dear Lance. — Do you thmk anyone can. feel uncomfortable m Heaven? If so, I think St. Patrick must have on Thursday last. If he could only have looked down on loyal Wellington, and seen the wav m which the green was being worn in his honour ! How was it used? I walked into town on Thursday morning, resplendent in my green relt. My bow I forgot (fortunately). I first saw three jovial priests of St. Pat's, walking proudly along, each with 'Teen in his button-hole. I then saw sundry kittens, dogs, horses, barrows, expresses, and all sorts and conditions of men, from the frock-coated, rubberheeled individual to the. express driver wii-i his sleeves rolled up c^corated in gieen. * • • Numerous other attempts at that one particular kind of loyalty I saw. One shop in Cuba-street, which is usually very prettily dressed, was gaily decked with green, with a very suspicious show or orange mingled with it. Lastly I saw, oh, horror ! the necks of a row of dead rabbits, which hung outside a nsh vpndor's window, tied with green ribhon. That was the finishing stroke for me. I turned on my heels, and went 1 ome a sad woman. I laid aside my areen belt with many misgivings. lam making a doll's dress of it now for a IHtle girl. Those dead rabbits excited my generosity. — Yours, Patience.

Unconscious humourism from a Waihi paper: — "Mr. Bushby advertises his last two da^s — Friday and Saturday." If it gets to be fashionable to anticipate one's decease in the newspapers, it will much simplify the work of undertakers and mourners. » * ♦ Australia's wee Governor-General ie big enough to carry a rifle, and knows how to use one, too. Thought he'd like to try some colonial ammunition thf other da- Rnddidso on the C.A.O. Works range. The little man took a "sighter," and made an inner with it. Then he rattled on three "bulls." Wonder if that marker was loyal ? * * * Even, Australia gets a "look in" in the Old Country newspapers lately. Here is a sober story, published in a solemn London Dailv about a rabbit trapper : — "This wortW it is said, has invented a crate 50ft long by 30ft wide, . y 'or conveying rabbits from one place to another. The crate is composed of a light framework of wood, covered with wire-netting, and built close to the ground. It is open at the bottom. The whole affair runs very lightly on wheels. Foi a start a quantity of thistles are placed in the forward end. The rabbits, rushing for them, move the crate forward. The trapper has a reaper and binder seat fastened on top. He simply steers. The rabbits feeding forward, push the crate with the trap\)pt, his swag, doe and family. The labbits (500 strong) were recently delivered at the North Shore (Geelong) in fine freezing condition. With a good season, the inventor claims to do carrying jobs to the seaport, and catch rabbits* at the same time the inrush of r: bbits driving the machine at an average rate of seven miles a day."