After Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 260, 24 June 1905, Page 10

After Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt

WHEN on© =>ec» the interested oiowds of people watching the great sky-scraping dei ticks Lifting tans of bricks and mortar about at the ne<w D.I.C. building, and then remembers that tlie Town Hall "derricks" were a horse and a few men with brick-hodls, one begins to believe that Wellington is moving. * * * "When a well-preserved woman of thirty tells you sh© dreads her twentyfifth'birthday, if you tell her to "let the dead past bury its dead" she is apt to walk straight past you in the street without speaking. * * * Dr. Dowie'e followers at Zion City are allowed to play football, under "gentle, safe, and 1 expurgated rules," which almost eliminate violence Downe as a disciple of gentleness and non-violence is decidedly a new line. * • The Hon. Mr. McGowan : "The idea of the Government was to lift the masses, and better their condition of living." James is himself a complete credit to the system. Some d!ay his book, "From Apron to Cabinet," will have a huge* sale. * * « "From my heart I forgive them " Father Hays on the people who misrepreseTited him Whiat an example to ■bhe party politician who is at thos moment girding on his vocabulary. Fancy Tommy Taylor, for instance, being guilty of such a phrase ! * * * "Mabel" writes-— "I _ think the Lance is in error m assuming that Mrs. Hislop's kind interest in the providing of blankets for the poor is a novelty. Mr. Aitken also provided blankets — usually of the 'wet' variety." "Mabel" possibly refers to the ex-Mayor's wellknown antipathy to any social joy not glorified by the kirk. * * * In the Clarence Rivei district of New South Wales there is a fig tree the ciroumferemce of which at the base is 250 feet. We often hear of the glorious possibility of every man sitting under hii own fig tree as applied to town areas. Fig trees of the above dimensions would probably feel lonely in the vast expanse of most Wellington front "gardens." * * * A propos of hair restorers. John D. Rockefeller is the richest man in the world, and he hasn't enough han on his head to make an eyelash for a mosquito. Moral Don't waste youi substance m riotou* lotions amd potions when mature commands you to be hairless. It is easaeT for a man to thread a needle than for the 1 baldheaded to enter into the heaven of hair possession. „ * * Thus the usual West Coast paper, speaking of the late Mr. James Carroll, formerly of the police force "Whose meritorious deed at the wreck of the Surat saved the livers of 300 people." I've been wondering what Mr. Camroll wanted with these organs, until I remembered it was a West Coast paper that was talking. An odd "r" or so is of very little consequence down that way unless it begins the word "Richard." Police smartness. Auckland man obtained, money under false pretences un October Warrant for his arrest issued in Decembei . He didn't cleai out. He stayed 1 right on where he was Constable from criminal's old town went to Auckland an a visit, and recognised the man, who was arrestod a fortnight ago. His safest plan would have been to join the police, where, so it appeal's from recent happenmss, they make no enquiries as to the "past" of the recruit * » * A hair-raiser definitely announces that the general female scalp is becoming, denuded of its natural foliage — that, in fact, we, as a sex, are thieatened with baldness. Considering that girls of sixty or so show hair architecture of from six inches to one foot six in altitude, I should discredit the rumour if I did not know that they were indebted to the jute mills of India foT the size and beauty of the construction. Where animal nature fails, vegetable^ nature takes up the contract.

Hop-gioweis. are fiJled with a fuil-^iz-ed dread that it piohibition i» earned in New Zealand the hop trade will have to go. So, of course, will the Government viticultures. The gentlemen now employed m tending the huitful vme will be <bcut out tract-distnbutmg, and baknig-powdei will be sub^ituted for yeast in all bakencis. ''Man's inhumanity to woman " Imagine a "Charitable" Aid Boaid ( Christ - ahurch) squabbling with the police a>^ to who should mte/i a woman who had beei' drowned. Somehow, fche wordh "ohautable" and 'benevolent" applied to dispensers of public tun dm in New Zealand suggest a,nytlnng but the true meaning. The Cliristchuroh City Council buried the corpse. A ehaimuig youiLg English widcu , w ho arrived vi New Zealand only last week wears a gold chain and a pendant The pendant in quite unique. Asked bv a friend what it wa^, she replied, w ,th the utmost unconcern ''Oh, that'x my husband '" The friend afterwards asked a doctoi quietly if 'Mre>. Suoh-an-suoh was quite- risjht in heir head 9 "Why," he replied, "she's the 'eute-t woman in the roam!" She told him The doctor laughed. "She iw peifeotly correct," he said "Her husband was cremated at Woking, and that clinker she wears is he." * # Some men have a bad habit of staring at ladies. Some ladies don't mand. Others do. A man. on the Quay stared persistently at a lady the othen morninpc, and became such am annoyance that the lady stopped a man fnend, and told him. The man friend stepped over, and told tine starer he was offensive. "Bhe starer apologised. "I'm awfully sorry, but d'you know I came down with my mother, and I've lost the run of her." Considering the etaiedat lady has not been moie than twentyfive years old for many years past, the unintended inference is obvious. * * * I wi'tne&sed a smart bit of work in Adelaide-road lately. A pair of big horses in a lorry got away up near the car-sheds, and 1 bv the time they were 1 at tlbe Newtown School were domg Cup time, or thereabouts. Carters amd horsey men on the way frantically flicked whips at them, and said "Whey !" (whuch might just as well have been "Ourds'"). Beating up against the w3md oame a young fellow, possibUy of the cleo-k persiuasaow. He saw the tea,iong team, and got off his bake. Next tluns I caw a slight youth being dragged through the atmosphere — but he stuick on like a limpet. The horses gave in. The voiung man. put his bike aboard, and went far a drive, looking for the carter, whom he found. The horses were handed over in perfect condition, and the harness only wanted one strap to be as good a.s new.

When Influenza stalks the land, La Guppe 01 bionchial tiouble; Oi croupy coughs are going lound Our misery to double Would you, from eveiy cough and cold, Keep you and yours secure 9 There's one, and only one advice — Take Woods' Great Peppermint Cure.