Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 204, 28 May 1904, Page 12

Entre Nous

MANY paisons complain of the pool congregations they get, and the lack of interest displayed b\ tl'e people One \ery populai paison in the wintiy Soutii was ndmg to take the service at a small waxside place a foit night ago when the horse he was i iding slipped, and fell on his leg. The paison was accommodated at a w ayside house during the morning and a messenger on horseback w ent along and told the congiegation that there would be no service, as the clei srvman u«v> hurt. Five minutes later, the male raembei s of the congregation wei c playing a very fast game of football in the church paddock, where the lady worshippei s looked on and encouraged them. The heroic paison, who got along later, pieached an afternoon's seimontotwo men with black-eves, and four excited-looking ladies The rest had gone home. • • • As we before remarked, education might be more extensive than it appears to be on the West Coaist. One paper theieaway says — While in South Africa Mr. Bert Royal met a number of Boors, who showed no sign of discontent or ill-feeling against the British." Mr. Royle possibly meets one or two gentlemen spelt that wav even heire • * * The gasman knocked at the Dixonstreet boarding-house door, and told the landlady that he would have to cut-off the gas, as some repaii s were to be effected in the main. He would, of course with the rapidity of the Butish workman, lestore the suuply before the shades of night had fallen. At 5.15 o'clock the landlady lit a match and applied it to the dining-room chandelier. The workman had not kept his promise The boarders weie comins; in to dinner, and she couldn't let them search for their mouths in the da<k. She got a couple of dozen candles, and a' ranged them round the table. • • • The boarders gathered lound. One boaulei was late. He is veiy often late. Likewise, he is always Irish, and is of a convivial disposition. He opened the dooi , and saw the candles. Dow n on his knees he dropped and crossed himself out of tespect to the "corpse" round whose "bed the boarders weie -gathered. There was a roan- of laughtei. "The divil fly away wid you for a set of disrespechtful blae^vards '" he said. "Haven't vez got moie dacencv than to laueh in the pie«ence of the dead?" ''Drunk " added a "mournei "

Pie-sessional campaigning is being cained on down South just now with a aood deal of vigoui . Cuuously, theie seems to be a desire ou the paat of electors to see a fuither 1 eduction on the -luti&s pei taming to the "necessities of life." One well-know n politician, who i, rathei noted for his quick lepaitee — and his staitling statements' — w as being heeled badly last week. "What is the fust thing you would' take the duty off, Mi X p " was wafted to him by a pei son with a warm aioma of farm-life about him. The politician viewed him sternh "Soa 1 you insanitaiv hog'" ion know who said it p * * * Some bare details of Mi Aitken's giddy lemaiks at the wedding of hi« fellow-mayor (Mi. London, of PetoneV filtered thtough from that interesting comniPi nial centre. The frivolous Chief Magistrate of the clueif city of the chief oountrv on thp slobe, asseited that • \, to that moment he had always i egai ded Mr. London as a married man, because he looked so meek and mild. He pa/id he had the appeal ance of a man with a laiare family He thought Petone had been blessed, as had Wellington bv having a bachelor nxaivoi * « * Mi . Aitken told them that once he was oJi the Hutt Road at night. (What he was- doing careering along in the mud iustoiy sayeth not.) He saw a couple sitting an a log. She saad ' John (not John G. W., you know), this is bliss but married life would be blister." Mi. Aitken's leputation foi telling the truth i- so well established that we refuse to believe that a gni said the same thing in a comic paper twenty-five years ago It was overheard by Mr Aitken, on a moonlight night, down the Hutt Road The people gave Mr. and Mis. London some spoons. Our jocular Mayor 1 emarked that he thought they had done with ' SDOons." W'hei eupon twenty-five young ladies giggled, and said "Isn't ho a dear?" He is, really. * * Kvidiemtly the Australian pi ess look upon the New Zealand police as a soit oi opera bouffe constabulary, kept eintarel'' to effect humorous or tragic eilors. Openimg with a, few woids about the coM'aiingof Mr. W T a,tts, who wasn't Eltos, the Adelaide "Critic" revives facts to justify its conclusions that our police aie a faakly inept corporation. The ' Critic" starts with the conviction of C'h'emas who was ai rested foi a crime, leileahed, anid who blew his head off. It next gets on to the murdei of an eldeih coupk at Petone James Shore the wrong man was arrested, and subsequently released. Bc^her paid the penalty. * * * Then ISorhtlv touohimg on the notoiioui Lilyw'hite case, in whioh the said man was hounded to gaol, and to permanent iW-hearth, it concludes — "The Land of the Moa and fie lund volcano ks sadN in want of a few Pheilock Holmeises and oleajr-theaded policemen, who won't lush in and a nest any peaceful] citizen in sisrht w hen someboch lias dienarted suddenly for thf» othei Avodd w ithout his consent per unlawful means "

So cx-M.H.R. Jaickson Palmei has been made a judge of the Native Land Com t ' This is one of the appointments that have been piophesied eveasince Jackson finally walked down the steps of Parliament Buildings. The Lance lejoiced when the able lawyer was made a J.P. It congratulated him on the honoui . Likewise, it said at that time — "Who knows but what this sudden wax of prosperity may carry him on its irresistible crest to a judgeship." The ex-member for O'huiernun will make a capital judge. He is well up m native land law, and knows how to hustle things along. His law will be flavoured with common-sense • * * His Honoi Judge Ward wails wittily because he finds he has no sinecure in conducting couit proceedings at Pahiatua Says he — "I was infoimed, before accepting the appointment of judge in this district, that there would be nothing to do here. But, Pahiatua is indeed a lively place. Milk and mosquitoes appeal to be the chief products of the country. The mosquitoes stimulate the people to litigation, and the milk enables the litigants- to pay costs, and thus all things work toeethe-r for good , and the legal profession ai c emabled to earn an honest living." • • • In the ' Answers to Coi respondents" column of a mid-island paper is the editorial intimation to a lady (full name given), "Meet mie by moonlight ail one." In a paper issued later in a near-by town it is announced that the lady's father demanded an instant apology from the amorous editor of the flippant print. As a mattei of plain fact, the words were in reply to a query from a lady as to the name of a song sung bv a local tenor at the last flower-show concert. • • • General Kouropatkin, the Russian leader is New Zealand bom If you don't bellieve it, listen to the circuit stantiall account of his early history, published by owe who knows. Once there lived at Kurow, on the Waitaki, a man named Pat. He had several children, but the bniffhtest and best of them all iuis young Pat, make no error. One day young Pat disappeared. They dragged the river for him. but divil a button at all did they find of him They art last cave him up entirely, and mourned his loss. The boy, oih., wiheire was he 9 He floated out to sea, so he did, on a rimu log, and the Russian r-aroue. Neva, Captain Jugowiski in commland took him aboW^ and pourtd vodki into him until his spirit floated. • » • Such a broth of a boy crept right into the heaits of the owneis at Odessa, who gave him an education, and filled his pockets with gold. One day young Pat found an army commission lying idle round his lodgings, and he put it on, and woie it ever after, so he did. From the noble way he got the Cossacks to quelil two old apple-women and a yelow kun, he was made colonel and decorated with the brass cross for courage. H^ lost, his Irish tomigue— -except wlhem a Coik cuss sometimes slipued out. He campaigned extensively, having been four hours once in Turkestan, with nothing but a bottle of vodki between him and thirst. His heroic defence of the bottle so charmed his royal master, the Czair, so it did, that he made Kui ow-pat-kin chief of the army in the Fai East, d'ye mind me, now?

(Ja.njada> luusa't got tlie juvenile antismoking law . A ladies' deputation \*<iated upon Ptenner Lauuer, and wept about the naughty little boys who consumed tdie fatal fag." Sir Wilfred. s«id sue-hi a law wouldn't do any goad, but if the good ladaes. were to go home and leiairn how to cook, make home attractive to the kiddies, and generally control the wayward youth, themselves, tliey would do better work in ousting the pernicious cylinder of sawdust than the "oihoe could do. Which in view </i the non-observance of the law in New Zeiad'aind 1 is worth hearing about. • * ♦ Eveiybody knows everybody else in tiie two-hotels-and-a-stoie townships of New Zealand. The local constable IS, of com be, the leadei of society; next come the storekeepers and publicans; and then the Js.P. In a defended case, heard befoie two Js.P., the other day, the leader of bociety that is the policeman, in giving hib evidence, casually leaned over towards the senior J.P., and remarked: "Well, yer see, Bill, it was lite this 'ere — " A lawyer (he was raised in England, poor chap), aghast at the frightful lack of respect due to the Bench, sprang to his boots with a olanon yell, and demanded to know if His Worship permitted such an affront to the dignity of the Bench. "Oh, it's all light. Mi. Deeds, Jimmy and me's known one another fer years!" and Jim went on teHin" Bill how things wuz, done ver see? • • • Some writer (think it was the late Max O'Rell) 1 eckoned 1 that a womaji who picked imaginary bits of fluff off a man's habiliments was in lore witth him. This isn't about anything; imaiginraiy. It was true. 'Twas at the Opera House, and both were in evening dress There was an, unsightly bit of brown cotton on his collar, and tlhe lovely girl daintily gripped it to takie it •off. It didn't come off, and both giggled. She pulled some more. Tlhe thiead was about six inches long now. Blushing furiously, she yet pulled until the "bit of flufl" was a yard oir so long. If she had gone on pulling hi® undershirt would have petered out in time. • • • For downright Cossack ferocity oommond us to some Kilbirme hoodlums, who are still outside a gaol. There was, and probably still is, an old grey I oir&e in that suburb, apparently turned >>ut to daei — to save funeral expenses. He has done his work, a.nd is of no use to anybody. He is too slow to get out el the way of the ferocious Coss&oks first referred to The afehei day they caught him, and tied a ragged-edged keros>etn.e tin to his tail. This ordinarily would be meiely cruel, but they thought of a more amusing scheme. They made the bottom part of tine to fast to the ancient beast's hindJleiK. When he moved, which he dtid with difficulty the tin jammed between his le^s and the raw edges out into the f'esh. It was very amusing! • • • Furthermore, the pean-ifle fiends out that way have a habit of shooting at these stray equine derelicts. One recent Saturday one heard the crack of the&e toys, and saw an old hoirs© jumping about. They wet c shooting at him, nnd sometimes hitting him. But the kerosene-tin amusement wan/ts looking into. It is nearly as wicked as the "two-up" sin the police are so concernet about.

'Tin* 'ere's a ruin go, am tit, matey ?" Thus a begrimed son ot V uloan to an equally begnraed mate on the o o'clock tram from town to Newtouii, on Friday last. ' What s that ye're talking of?" ' Why, tihe blooming Co. portion is ordering you an. me oft the 'leetnc airs, only toffs with white-washed fences and swells with thiity bob a week us allowed to ride on them maa-vellous oushwms. See lieie, reading "Any passenger whose dress m clothing might, in. the opinion of the conductor, soil or mjune the Imn ?s 01 cushions, or the dire** or clothing of any other passenger, w.ll be wamec l cA. "Me and you, matey, is grafting .i«Jf in coal smoke, and 1 iron dust. W e about three times as tued as the olok» SS the wlute-washed f^ "i?"^ 11 ; neck Our money is a bit black so .<• onv clothes • * * •A. bit of a boy sticks you up. He don't see ou. be*t duds what's hanging v? in the cupboard at 'ome. He only sees the sweaty, sooty, togs 'Yer can't come ml 1 he says. 'Why not? "Cos the Corporation says ye re too dirty"' "AJi, well, and what aie ye gWto do aboot if" asks Donald who fs black as a nigger, and has sot has £5 T eeki- wa^es stowed safely m his pocket "Well, I reckon we'll have to aluminium seats to the pants, could be given to the dirty workmen who have The insolence to want tow home. It might also provide Turkish baths On boa. dins the car, the conductor miaht band to the working-mar, passen!?ct a bottle of disinfectant. Like^ ise ff the Council is going to prohibit foundir WAs a^d WackMgitihs generally from riding in the oa,rs, there arp to be about forty vacancies for niize-fiahtera to act tram-gua,rds^ Likewise, the. Council misftt subsidise a Maxim detachment to do a picquet at stopping-places » • • The skilful handling of our native tongue by the hieathen Chinee. Herewith is a notice in a Palmers-ton North papei —"From henceforth be careful that we did not nab you <m the act of stealing vegetables from our garden, because we will not spare you when caught.— Way Kee, market gardener. • • • Pathetic ante-mortem wail from a little Yankee paper which, alas, is now laid to rest —"With this issue the 'Herald-Barmen' folds, its lily white hands upon its bosom, and turns its nmk toes to the daisies, and Milburn. T.T. U.S.A.. is without a paper, havine m vtnp^od thp. doath of two. It haws cost rhe piecent firm 253 dollars to advertise 1 he town, the beautiful blue and fertile =oils etc. and we now throw up the tnon^e to make room for another sucker, an revoir, good-bye. We are oom" to do something far you that the devil will never do — that is, leave you" \nrl sn TTi= Sombre Hisrhness is *ole vei ni ter at all socia.l functions still

We haven't descended to the pennj-m-the-slot metei yet in New Zealand. We'ie hardly beggarly enough for that. They've had them in England foi years. The machines respond to either a penny 01 a two-shilling piece, but one only gets a pennyworth of gas in response to the silver coin. Ruinous ? Not a bit. The machines aie commonly used, as savings banks bv the people, who are handed the change by the gas-meter collector when he calls. "Oh, dash it, I haven't eot a penny. I'll have to put in a couple of bob '" is the u*>ual wml, but the joy is gieat when co'lleetmigday conies Wellington merely luxuriates in one-sihilling-im-the-slot meteis. Ir is one of the sierhts 1 of the eai Iv morning in the suburbs to see partially-clad paterfamilias scouring the country for change to set the sas-rinor sromo- LiVewise is it omei of the disappointments to see the "bobs-wo rth" exnire iust as the kettle "sings "

Onei day thi^> week (says the "Obseivei"), a young Maou dropped into a Queen-street dotihier'b shop, and gazed anxiou&ly aiound the counters and shelves, evidently hopnug to light upon some particular article. A salesman, bore down upon him, washing his hands witih inrvasibl© soap, and' piofened his as.-^tainc©. But the perplexed expression only deepened on the visitor's face. He couldn't remember the name of the gaiment he wanted. All he knew was that it was also the n*ime of a place in New Zealand. So the attendant recited all that he could remember of the collony's gieiogiaphy, in theilhiope of striking the proper chord in has customer's meraoiy. * * # None of them were of any use till he mentioned Port Chalmers. "Ah," exclaimed the Maori, in delight, "that the place. That what I want. Give me i\ piair of Port Chalmers." The phonetic reßeotnbliaince sufficietntly indS-cated. pyjamas as the object of his quest, and five motaiutes lateir he left, tlhe shop with his bumdfle under his arm, chuckling at the prospect of sleeping that night "a III the same as the white man." * * # It is easily ascertained' that the editoi of thei Tuapeka "Times" had a> "real good time" iin his early da^s. He has just expressed some thought® on the absorb ma; topic of the use, misuse, or abolition of the corset. Hear him — "We fanov that the protecting and encircling; arm of the modern lover has a slightly greater distance' to work around than ou/rs had in our callow youth. We have read somewhere that Queen Fashion has issued an ukase to the effect that small waists are 'coming in' again. Hence, no doubt, the tearful supplication to the Premier bv the Auckland ladies, who probably prefer to use then weight with the Premier rather than trust it with an attenuated corsetage. • • • "But what an example we have here exhibited) of the Premier's monopohsa.tion of power' Not only must he rule, but he is expected to regulate the size of corsets. We think this is too much powei to place in the handls of any man. The referendum must be invoked. When the drink question is settled, we oonfidentlv look foiward to the time when oorseteers and anti-corseteers will march) to the polls with banners waving and bands 1 playing." • • • One gets a smile in a railway can iage <ometim.es. Although the average New Zealander is usually immersed in deem gloom when he is rushing alon^ at wel ye and three-quarter miles an hour, we noticed a man in a first-olass "nonsmoker," the other day, pull his pipe cut light it. and begin to smoke. A 7 on-smoker alongside protested. No pffect. The guard came alon"- amd ihe non-smoker told him about it. The

Yankees .ue getting, ■balmiei " in the 1 r ohase airtei novelties A ciymg competition was won m Chicago the othei da,> , by a girl who shed tfmty-one tears in five nruutes. Another gnl came a bad second, with nineteen tears • • • The Waikato pai&on, wlio bewailed the non-attendance of milkeis at chuicli, lemarked that Providence should intimate to milkers who were nofe ohui eh-goers that if they didn't attend Piovidenee would take their cows away. If Providence did any sucJi biuta,! thinf the Lance would at once oaJl the attention of the S P.C A to the ci ueltv and eet Providence 'ru'i in" if possible

Seom& that Government officials aie lequned to foimally state, on assuming the mati imoiiial noose, that they have been and gone and done it, although tne leave required and necessary far the assumption of the haltei has been planted. You see, the authorities, when they heai that So-and-So wants a fcitnie;ht off to be maimed, don't connect it with a wedding. One man recently got manned. On his return to y ork lie found awaiting him a document l^omting out that he had failed to notify the head tha.t he contemplated such a nj'Uise. He replied regiettme that thiou^h an ovei sight he had failed to re port and beaded to say he w ould 'note for future leference." He is not in the wholesale line, either.

guard requested the smoker to withaiavv to the srnoking-ear. He did so, but asked the guard to be good, enough to look ait the ticket of the protester. It v\ as a s©oond-el&s>s ticket light enough. How did you know ?" asked, one of the other passengers. "Well, I saw it sticking out of his vest pocket, and it's tiie same colour as mine!" He's a pietty successful kind of a "bookie." » • » A we Hl-known citizen, by the front name of Fred, with the conical skull, ike bugjhit blue eye, the tiim whiskers, and the! .meat foot, was passing a Mannei s-stireab fruit shop the other day. "What would surprise and delight the deai chiLdien a,nd the wife more than some luscious fruit P He beamed with the benevolence of the thouerht. When bought, lie carefully stored the fruit in hit, hand-bag, and passed 1 on to his office. Ai five o'clock he giipped the bag, and went home. The darling; children thronged into the hall. "Here's pa!" they cried. • ♦ ♦ "Who likes pears?" clucked pa. "Me' Me' Me! Me!" from four little throats. Pa opened his bag, and groped. "Well, here you are chickabiddies'" With that he hauled out a larere boot that had probably long since outlived its wearer. "Oh, Pa '" Thus the disappointed ones. Pa groped some more He found an impure office towel, and some inky blotting:, paper, but he lost his temper. Next day his trari'ied evei noted pear peeJinjors in the office but hp hasn't srot to the core of the matter yet.