Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 207, 18 June 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

QUAINT remai k of Lord Ranf m ly, who was recently farewelled at Rotorua, — "I hope the Waimangti Geys&r will keep on." I hope it mil confine itself to it® weird antics in its own back-yard. * # * An unfoitun&te eiror appeals nn a Southern print this week. The mayor of a town has resigned his position owing to "pressure of business." The paragraph notifying this is inserted under a heading, "Public Impiovements." • * * Exti act from the diary of a Wellington lan who has recently returned from ihis first sea trip — Little drops of water, Little graans of samd, Make the horrid ocean AM the beastly land • ♦ * How zs this, for foolhardy or daredevil ° Man wanted to lodge a petition at Gieymouth before the court sat. River too high ; boat couldn't hve. He crawled on the wires of an aerial tramway for oveii a male, to accomplish his purpose. I wonder if the application was refused ? • • • Terrible Tommy Taylor says that the men who make the most money in the Country are the farmers. I hope it is true. If it is. true, and I am sure Tommy couldn't teLI a lie, it is time foi •tfhe farm labourers to rise up like one man. and demand something better than a pound or twenty-five shillings a week — and find their own blankets • * " • Tno thousand pounds' worth of Chinamen arrived in this suffering country from Sydney by the Victoria on her last trip. That lepresetits the poll-tax of £100 a head. I had the privilege of gazing on the collection as it stood gesticulating on the said ship. Oinamentally considered, I think the score of Mongolians wouild be dear at one and edghtpence. • • * A person charged at Chnstohurch with inebriety, stnick an attitude of teetotal rectitude, and asked how she could possibly have been intoxicated, seeing that she had spent the evening in Ashburton. That quaint M.HR., Rutherford, you remember, recently remarked, "Prohibition is coming. When it comes, the thirsty man's only hope of a drink will be Asihburton." I suppose he includes ladies? « « * There is an opening at Taaihape for a missionary with a tongue of flame, a face of iron, a heart of oak, and a hide of steel. He will need to cairry fiiearms and be a champion pugilist. The Taihape 'Trumpeter" thus — " At the banquet on Tuesday evening at Taihape an individual who had 'dined not wisely, but too well,' attempted to dance a jig on the supper-table, with dasastorus results to the glasses and bottles." • • • Until recently, about the only place in the woi Id where one was supposed to be free from the pursuit of microbes was the Alps Now, an unpleasant bacteriologist has been frying snow amd ice up there, and he finds hosts of dreadful diseases resting oti the summit. I can't understand why anybody lives. Even if one's hands are vigorously washed, one transmits many million microbes to one's friends in the mere of shaking hands. I suppose these are benignant microbes 9 • » * Wh.it a dear, good, kind friend for a gul to have is the Rev. F. Isitt. Said he would rather see a girl burnt alive — or burnt to death P — than see her in an hotel bar, where she is forced to hear blackguardism whether she wants to 01 not I don't suppose that the immaculate pan-son has evei spoken to such a dreadful person as a barmaid. Neither do I suppose that he has ever permitted himself the agony of going into a bar. I believe that most barmaids would immediately resent any blackgnai dasm, amd that they have plenty of champions who would heave blackguards through the door. The intemperance of prohibitionists is doing great harm to their cause, and. pea^sonally, lam sorry. I tfhink Mr. Isitt should be grateful that he isn't a girl who has to earn a livins: and I quiver to think what will become of him if prohibition comes.

Tommy Taylor on the no-license paity and its, ambition — "We win \\ hen we win, and v,e win when we lose • * * An Australian opinion of A ictoria & bull-dog Piemaer —"Bent and blithoi are, weie, and always « ill be sjnonjmous, similar, and the same." The Japanese couits dvi ins, the two weeks piewous to the outbieak of the wai , granted 1.50,000 di voices to eoildleis. A widow never le-niaimes in Japan a divoicee neaily always does. • • • The Biunner people who live on the hillsides have had a terrifying time since the fatal slip that killed those seven poor little childien In fact, the people aie abandoning the hillsides altogether. Makes one w onder w hat might happen if the Wellington Teirace cliff that runs along the back of the Money Older Office and there about, took a notion to slid© some day • * * Thene is ait least one lady 111 New Zealand who is entitled to near a -very 01 editable 'breast" of medals. It is Mis. D. Gillies (nee Miss Speed), who, the other day, at the unveiling o<f the memorial to Marlboi ough soldiers, woie the -uniform of the Princess Christian Nursing Reserve. Her decorations are the order of St. John of Jerusalem, the South African war medal (Queen's), South African war medal (King's), and the New Zealand medal. » * • Since theie is such a stir about the alleged impurity and! adulteration of milk, the Gei-man people's method of proving dilution is woath knowing about A clean, shiny, knitting needle is dipped into the matutinal jug. If diluted, some of the mixture adheres, if not, the knitting-needle remains umsoiled. There is no method other than an analvsils of disoovei ing the constituents of hotel "drinks." A pure hquon bill duly passed would bring the sellers to despair, and probably make them take to local preaching, or something. She lost hoi bead when he proposed, But he, a gallant soldier, Made search f oi it d'istiactedly, And found it on his shouidei . * * ♦ The story, vouched for as con ect by a leading Chiistchuroh papei , that a party of inhuman motorists chased a lioise nine miles, when it dropped from exhaustion and fear, is sad leading. When it is alleged that all the motorists were lespeotable, and that one wao prominently identified 1 "with the Society for the Prevention of Crueilty to Animals lit will be seen that all that glitters is not gold. The horse is said to have been so exhausted that it bled at the nose. Those motonsts should hire themselves to the Tui ks for the next Armenian massacre. ♦ ♦ ♦ There was possibly a farce-comedy behind a recent advei tisement in the "Post" — "Wanted, by thiee gentlemen, Board and Residence m a quiet Ghiistian family. Reply 'Biffed Out,' Evening Post." Makes one wondei whether they were "quiet Christian gentlemen" themselves, or meaely worldly clerks, who raided pantries, and so on. Was taking the an on a topdecked car the other day down Vivianstreet. On a shop roof was a bundle of blankets that had hardly done trembling, a soiled collar, and a battered "bow lei" hat. Behind the cui tains an agitation was proceeding "Notheir boarder getting 'biffed out' l " said a solemn man.

The misei sat amongst his gold. "I would not paifc," he said, "With half-a-guinea, tho' my life Were to be foifeited " But influenza got him down, His bieaths giew shoit and fewer, "Take all I've got," he cued, "but give Me Woods' Great PjEPPt-mriNT Cure."