Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 217, 27 August 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

SKATING boomed with terrific vigour at Adelaide for quite a while. The boom is burst, and the rink closed. I don't see any evidences of the Wellington boom bursting yet. # , . In England the convicts receive 101b of bread a week, while the paupers only receive 71b. This is certainly not an argument in favour of "honesty being the best policy." • * * Mr. E. M. Smith promises to do everything he can for "every man and woman, male or female, in the colony." Will he be good enough to supply me with a duke with £100,000 a-year m'oome? If so, I don't mind marrying. • * * Ex-General Cronje, who, like a lot of Boer leaders, lost his wife during the war 3 has found consolation in an American widow with much cash. He was married in the States on "the glorious Fourth." The old dopper is himself a rich man. Radium is down, at the bargain sales now. A professor in the line says, for a limited time, he will supply radium at £100,000 a pound — if he oan get it. If you want to give the girl a present you oould buy nothing so unique or cheap at the price. Evidently the wish is father to the thought. "Ad." in an Adelaide paper "If Joseph Henry Nixon does not answer this advertisement within one month, I will consider him dead, and will marry again. — Sophie Nixon, P.O , Broken Hill." • * * I noticed two little boys playing in the gutter the other day. The spirit of emulation was strong with them. Said one> • "I'll bet my hands are dirtier than your's !" Replied the other • "Course they are; you're two years olderin me!" + * * There is a lady in Waihi whom the Premier has not yet congratulated. In two years and nine months she has presented to the State five children (two pairs of twins and a single little New Zealander). Her husband, who is a miner, would rather be a millionaire. » * * A note in a lady's angular handwriting begs me to note that the male hookey players of Wellington axe meting out extremely cavalier treatment to female ditto. Some of the ladies' matches clash with those of the men, and the men want to spoil thf sports of their sisters. • • • So says my anonymous correspondent, but, as she discreetly withholds her name, I'm inclined to think she doesn't feel too sure of her facts. The "mere men," no doubt, can show another side to the story. Therefore, I suspend judgment. • ♦ * "However did you get those big rents in your new morning coat? I've had bo sew them up." Thus a newly-mar-ried Wellington girl to her very ownest. "Rents? There were no rents that I know ofl" She brought the coat. Three years hence he will be angry if she dares to sew up his pockets. • • • Two men on the Quay yesterday morning dashed simultaneously to lift a stray half-crown off the pavement. Just as one man was about to put his foot on it, the other grabbed it. The man with the foot was the best general. He straightened himself with a cry of pain. "Thank you, sir!" he said, and held out his hand. The man handed over the coin. Neither had ever seen that half-crown before. • * ♦ "The Modern Maid," accoiding to a modern man • — Her sleeves are 1830, And her skirt is '61. Her tresses m the manner Of Louis Quinze are done. Her hat is quite colonial, Her brooch is pure antique. Her belt is 1850, But when you hear her speak, What year the maid belongs to You do not wonder more. Her diess is many periods, But her slang is 1904.

Stirling item fiom Wauganui "Clnonlole . — "The Czantza has given bath to a son. A foreigner was ai rested and detained 1 at Milfoid Haven." Since the tramway inspectors have donned their uniforms, which are moie becoming than anything in the mihtai y line Wellington has, I hear that staftofficeis and others proceeding to then duties on the cars keep their millinery at the War Office. The prospect of being asked for a penny ticket is not to be chanced. # * * I suppose you have noticed, with a good deal of joy, that, up to now, the electric cars are not plastered over with advei tisements that they don't know whether Codgei's Coooa is the best, or if Nervette will cure toothache I sincerely tiust that the cars, which aae now omngs of beauty, will never become the groundwork for patent medicine literature. • * * "Yes, dear, it's positively scandalous the price of bread. Gone up a halfpenny again, and we do eat such a lot " Thus a society woman to a fi lend in one of our largest and most fashionable diess emporiums. "This one is much reduced in price, madam," said an assistant, showing her a very ordinary looking piece of headgear. "It is mat ked down from £10 10s to £5 16s lid." And, ultimately she bought it. Bread is so expensive. * * # I told you a while ago that, owing to the visit of Mr. Seddon to the slumbrous but beautiful township of Tauranga, the rusty kerosene tins that had done duty for polling-boxes at the Post Officei for fifteen yeais had been replaced by new and shiny ones. I now hear that the authorities have taken the standing advertisement for kerosene tins out of the local papers, as a local tradesman has generously contributed a candle-box * ♦ * Police Commissioner Dinnie's remarks on pak-a^pu and other Chinese amusements are curiously Like the remarks) of the Lance, published a -week or so before. He says these amusements are pretty harmless if kept to themselves, but that injury is done when the whites associate with the yellows As you know, the police used to raid only those Chinese dens where tlhe heathen, unaccompanied' by the Christian bowed down to the fan-tan and pak-a.-pu god, and didn't raid the place where the white man helped. • * « Pardon me reviving the earthquake. I hear that, in one shop on Lambton Quay, mere man and lovely woman showed their several characteristics very plainly. One man left the building in a considerable state of deshabille, and other gentlemen left in their shirtsleeves, and so on. When the quake happened 1 , however, the girls, who were in their working "pinnies," all, with one accord, divested themselves of the said "pinnies," and carefully skewered their hats on, and then sallied out to their death if need be. * * * A belated British v. New Zealand football match incident. One lady, who had secured a knoll from which to view the play, became momentarily weary, and stood down. Immediateely, a "gentleman" ascended the knoll, and, to the lady's polite request to be again allowed to occupy it, he became abusive, and would have laid hands on her if she persisted. It was very good to see the crowd "take to" that man, who, however, protested the whole afternoon that "he had paid his two bob, and wasn't sromp to be shoved out by any woman." He was shoved out, nevertheless.