Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 203, 21 May 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffltt.

A CHARMING hobby is that of a local ex-bookmaker, long since past the necessity of "earning" any more cash. He keeps pigeons. Formerly, "pigeons" kept him. He is 1 eciprocating, now he is able. • * * A thrilling item of sportmg news is published. It is that General Kourapatkui is riding a six-year-oH thoroughbred who has won mamy races in Russia. Ht- ought to be doing well at piesent, with a light-weight Jap up. Excuse my sporting style. I learnt it from the "Old 'Un.^ Pope 1 remarked) once that "worth makes th<> man," but, of course, he hadn't seen the "Wellington lady who last week returned from Paris wearing one of Worth's "creations." If he had, he would have altered 1 his line to "Worth makes the woman." I am told, it cost £150. Phew ! Poor hubby. • • • New Zealand's example agam ! The British Government is negotiating with the view of acquiring all telephone rights in Great Britain, and placing them under the Postal' Department. The intention is to break up private, and create a national, monopoly in telephones. • * * If you've got a photogroph of the Ciwvn Prince of Japan you'll notice he hasn't oblique eyes like his imperial parents. In fact, he mie;ht easily pass for a mere Britisher. When he was a baby the surgeon operated on his eyehds Hence his straight eyes. He hews a very close resemblance to Willie Percy, Pollard's only comedian. • • • Australia is naiturally angry at the assertion made here that the Maoris were not using theii mud batilis, since so many Australians also used them. One paper, however, says that the Australians found them no change. Having some knowledge of the Australian climate, I am able to say that most Cornstalks take a shower-bath before evea*y meal. » • * An extraordinary contretemps oc-eui-ied at the administration of the sacrament up North the other day when it was found that four ladies, who were wearing fashionable haits, couldn't get near enough to the chalice to sip from it. Therefore, the sight of allegedly devout women denuding themselves of their headgear, m order to getfc neai enough, must have been painfully grotesque. • • » President Roosevelt is one of those strenuous chaps who is always getting his muscle up. He has recently imported a celebrated Japanese wrestler to teach him his art. Consequently, a ef lebrated Ja™- wrestler is often thrown with a resounding bang in different parts of White House, for, of course, a celebiated Jap wrestler would never think of harming so honourably distinguished a cherry blossom as "Teddy." • # • He who loves and runs away May live to love another day , But as a rule, I am afraid. He also loves another maiid. • • • British bootmakers, who have had the feet of the aristocracy in their hands at anything up to £3 10s a time, are alarmed at a new craze. The Countess of Battersea started it by walking through Hyde Park barefoot. It was hei cure for a cold. Other duchesses, countesses, and lesser fry immediately went in for the cure. One prominent and noble guardsman, so "Millie" writes me from London, buffooned the thing by riding in the Row on his charger with bare feet. • • • Roller skating is again the rage in many colonial cities. Adelaide has it bad, and some very smart persons a,re working it for all it's worth. No teacher may get a billet unless he's young, handsome, and has a lovely moustache. Reminds me of the local rumour that the old barn in Vivianstreet is going to be opened again for skating. Also reminds me that one of the finest glass buildings in England was built entirely for skating and that it has cumbered the ground for the past ten years with never a skate near it. It is a craze that comes in gusts and dies away. Some day even ping-pong may revive.

It was discoveied that a Sydney footballer, who ha-s, to use the colloquial term, '"woodened 1 out" many players, is the sou of an undei taker. He is tryitng to be as loyal at> possible to- dad. *. * * Arid Ashburton i*» seriously discussing the advisability of asking the Governoi to leside there. It also thinks the Houstets of Paiiiiaanent should be ci eoted on a spa-ie block there. It shall be seen to at once. • • * A French cruninologist finds that, of several professions tabulated, lawyers have the greatest number of criminals, and priests the least. Journalists are apparently so> sinless that they are not mentioned at all. • # • I notice that the "Times" has discovered a new race of men, who appear to be fighting for the Thibetans. It remarks "The Sikhs and Ghoorkas. climbed the mountains, and 1 surprised the Sangars on both sides." It doesn't tell us whether the sangars (which are «tone or earth defensive works) fled. • # *• "Health" mentions that the best cuie for influenza is warm tea, and very little to eat. If you sat in a hot bath, and sip t-ea for about four hours, you wiill be whole according to my authority. It is a useful thing for employers to know when a "flu" epidemic is temporarily reducing the staff. • * * A meaner man than the piesent rhamniomi hasi been found in Wellington. Last Thursday night a passer-by noticed that the curtains in ai suburban house were on fire. He smashed the window, dragged) down the curtains, and extinguished them. Yesterday, he got a bill from the householder for 18s 6d — elazinp ss, curtains 13s 6d. He is thinking of sending in a contra for £1 Is doctor's fees, for a cut hand. • • *. Great feafchei in the cap of Charlie Skerrett, don't you think, to have gone home and won that Newtown licensing anneal case for the brewers? "The trade" are in, luck in having so keen a lawyer to fight their battles. Perhaps, also, they're in luck m having the fine, old, crusted Tory peers of the Privy Council as a court of final appeal. How much does the will of the people count for as against the technicalities of the law ? • • * From Nelson, the lotus land of sunshine and beauty, comes a complaint that "the honeymoon nuisance threatens to become as annoying to i ailn ay travellers as the football nuisance." The fact is bewailed that "a can iage on the train from Richmond the other evening arrived thickly carpeted with rice, and the passengers complained that they had been subjected to a discomfiting bombardment at one of the wayside stations." « • • In charming Korea a man cuiltv of tieason is decanitated. All his male relatives — to the fifth degree — are also decapitated. They have no right to possess an uncle father cousin, or brother with a criminal instinct. It often >>ar>T>ens that &< man is broueht from the uttermost parts of the kingdom to Seoul in order to have his head ohonoed off toother with the rest of his male relative* for having said the Emperor was an ass, or something similar. • » • That appeal made to the public on behalf of Artist J. M. Nairn's young widow and little children, I am glad to heai has produced a very substantial lesponse. The receipts from the recent exhibition, and the sale of pictures in connection therewith, net about £500. This is highly satisfactory avid a laige measure of praise must oe given to the committee, and particularly to Mi. Walter Leslie, who worked with such zeal as secretary of the exhibition, and to Mr. H. M. Gore, who acted as treasurer to the subscription fund.