Entre Nous.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 264, 22 July 1905, Page 12

Entre Nous.

THE Schoolmaster is not abroad. He is at home in Dunedin "Triad 1 " office. He ls a pundit of prodigious learning, and his ©special forte is the teaching of grammatical journalism. A paragraph in a recent Lance sets the pundit's teeth om edge. A verb was used in the singular when it ought to have been the plural. Or course, a slip that anyonie might make in writing in haste to keep' up with the linotype, but ought not to. The average sixth standard schoolboy could' tear Shakespeare's grammar to rags, and the "Triad" could, write a very learned' dissertation on Thackeray's terrible lapses. However, since the "Triad" has been kind enough to correct us for writing has for have, we betg leave to invite the attention of the "Triad 1 " man, with his microscope, to worse grammatical blunders on lus own printed page. To show his excey>tiolnal capabilities, the writer quotes Greek, and leads up to the quotation in Greek type by a sentence that ends thus "And are each one bidting their time." How's that, umpire? * • * Next, we have Mm speaking of a lady as hiaving sung "excellently well." He might have said "beautifully lovely" with equal correctness. The pundit's little lapses don't stop here. In the concert criticism referiedi to he makes use of the glorious sentence : "And in Palmerston evert one of these mistakes were repeated." Really, the polyglot "Triad" ought to see an oculist at once about that mote in his eye. * * * The spelling of the "Triad" also needs attention. Sometimes the "Triad" schoolmaster can spell correctly, sometimes he ©ain't. Perhaps, he will findl tha* "spontaniety" is not the accepted! form. Will he look? We have only glanced through a couple of pages of our grammatical monthly friend, and don't want to make hiirn blush too hotly bv carrying the survey any further. Ta-ta, Lindley Murray "Triad." Americans are coming over to England in great numbers. "Soon," says the "World," "the streets will be full of

curiously quiet-looking men in weird coats with paddled shoulders ending on the hips, long boots blobby at the tips, straw hats with no roofs, and' women with brown faces and eyes with very white leaves, green veils floating on the breeze, and accents that set one's teeth on edge." Mr. Woolley, the temperance lecturer, has a good many willing helpers. At the Opera House, previous to his lecture on Sunday week, there was a large crowd. The fire-bell clanged. The JBrigadie swept by. The people *swept after it. There was a chance for several people who didn't want to go to a fire to get a good seat. One portly gentleman, of pleasant appearance, took a seat m the front of the dress circle. To another gentleman alongside, one of Mr. Woollens committee said : "Good evening, Mr. So-and-so. Will you help us by passing round a plate?" The gentleman said! he would. "And you, sir?" he asked, turning to the stout, genial gentleman, "I haven't the pleasure of knowing you,, but perhaps you'd also assist?" * ♦ • The gentleman chuckled a, good deal, but said he'd be very pleased! indeed. Therefore, after the lecture one of the most prominent publicans in Wellington pushed! the plaite with amazing vigour. It is' also secretly reported that he dropped a half-sovereign of his own in before he finished. Then, he wem't out and told the joke. ♦ ♦ • "Indignant" writes from Nelson : — "As I am frequently reading paragraphs in the Lance about the scarcity of men in Nelson, and the way they get chased by the girls, let me, as one of the fair sex, take up mv pern to enter a protest on behalf of them. It is quite true that there are very few males here, but we have learnt to do without them, and find them quite a dispensable article. Most girls here have a very good time despite" the l^ck of what to make up the city girls' enjoyment. > * * "I think if you ask ino->t young men who come over here whether they were harried; about bv dozens of gurls, they will tell you that all that is over-rated. Except for a few, who air© in the sere and' yellow leaf, a^dl co inig, which you will find' in every place under the sun. Nelson sirls are the same a* city girls, only much, more independent, and to use a vulgar expression, 'tihere nin't no flies on us.' We girls know tire reputation which has been thrust on us perhaps, thmough the aforesaid 'sere and' yellow-leaf ones, so try to diecrv i* bv treating the other sex with scorn. Hoping ynn will mot insert any more para"Tar>H^ n.bout our fighting over stray men, which is absiurdi."

In one of the near-by suburbs of Wellington there is- a large miannfajcturing business, in which many men are employed. During the lunch-hour these men — young and old, married! and single — assemble m the yardl to doscuss the latest political problem, football matches, and so on, as the manner of men is. While these discussions are on a train passes by with unfaiLung regularity, and the argufyings are suspended for the time being. If a lady happens to be looking out of a window on the train, or standing on the plaitform, every man Jack of them waves his hand or anything else he can find handy. One day Last week the usual thing happened, with this difference that on this occasion a lady was seen to be frantically waving ncr handkerchief to the group of men. They all responded, each man accepting the sign, from the lady as meant for himself, with one solitary exception. This party was seen to be standing quietly, apparently oblivious to. what was going on. One of 'his mates approached him, with • "Why dlon't you wave to the lady ; she's waving" to you ?" The reply staggered all hands • "I know she is ; that's my wife. She told me she would be travelling by that train, and' would wave to me as sihe passed by." The sdlence that followed this remark could be felt. * * * Parsons are particularly absent-mind-ed. They "take no thought for the morrow . . . wherewithal ye> shall be clothed." The Anglican Synod sat last week. Evidently one cflergymam, or perhaps two, -went away early. They may have been short-sighted. Anyhow, when a pressman went to look for his vei'y well-worn "hard hitter," it wasn't there. There was a beautiful airrav of hats on the peg, but, not being a clergyman, he hesitated to snare a roof that 'wasn't his. Then the parsons trooped out. Frantic search availed many of them nothing. Lay members tried 1 on all the lay hat® available, and fell back on the curly-rimmed clerical variety. * • * One young parson, relieved the pressman's feelings. "Can't find! your own hat ? Same with me. But, I'm going to take the first that fits!" One aged cleric started 1 for home in a straw "bun," until an athletic layman sprinted after him and made a capture, while a parson from the Wairarapa, piteousOy besought a Wellington accountant to take his life, but spare his. little feilt. There are at present mixed feelingsi of despair and joy in many Christian householdi?. The despair happens where a clerical hat worth B£d hangs in place, of the brand new "knocker" worth 12s 6d, but the man who had, much against his conscience, to take a Christie and 1 Bennett marked £1 Is simply because someone else had relieved him of a serge eap — two for Is 9d— -will be very glad, of course, to cet his own again. On the whole, however, those parsons didn't seem to care a penny stamp what kind of a hat they ecot so long as it was a head covering of some kind.

That, dynamiting business in the court-house at Murchison, in which a defendant blew himself to pieces and shook the countryside up, is interesting as showing that a cool man can avert disaster. Magistrate Kenrick, although in fear of death, argued with the defendant Sewell, and got him to leave the court-house. If he hadn't done so. there would have been no court-house to leave. Mr. Kenrick has not' been a stdpemdliary magistrate long^about three years, we think. .Frevioijs to this he conducted a large goldfields practio© at the Upper Thames Mr. Kenrick's father before him* was a stipendiary magistrate. * * » Sewell is said' to hare had! fifty charges of dynamite on him. A stick of dynamite is about three and a-half inches long, and five-eighths of am inch through so he must have scattered them pretty considerably if their bulk was not, visible to the court. The officials at Murchison have evidenitQy not seen dynamite, for the wire says it is not explained how the. number of charges were ascertained, "no cartridge" cases having been found on, the scattered remains." The fact that dynamite ctoesn t have any cartridge case is probably the reason. The officials were evidently looking for rifle-cartridge shells. One .detonator— <a small copper contrivance, about as big round as a pencil, an inch long-^placed on a small piece of fuse, was sumcienit to explodle a ton of dynamite, and the man who finds the detonator should be mad© chief of the detective staff for the colony. * * . Some earnest school-teachers are. already teaching the young idea about the real and supposed effects of alcohol on, the human interior. This caused! a sixth standard) boy m a local sdhool the other day, m reply to a question about the composition' of the blood and the effect of alcohol on it, to write . — "It is made up of five million, red' insects, and one thousand white ones, to every' drop of blood. If alcohol is taken, it causes these insects to dry up and die, and come to the front of the body. Sometimes it is from this cause that people who drank alcohol are 'red! in the faoeT' " This is a new view of the physiological effects of alcohol. The New Zealand Defence authorities have forgotten all the useful knowledge they learnt about the class of men who make the best soldiers. This is seen in. the new regulations raising the minimum standard of height for recruits to sft. 6in. But, of course, if the force lsi to be a purely ornamental affair the regulation is .a good 1 one. The Army takes infantry recruite at sft. 4in. If the recruit is young, they don't mind if he is an inch, or an inch and a-half shorter. He is <a better man — supposing he is sound — than the guardsman who must be sft. Bin bare height Without any question at all. the smallest men wiio went to Africa, with New Zealand corps were the best soldiers and if sft. 6in had' been, the minimum for the British Army, there would have been no "Bobs."

The Rev. Anderson, the cheerful cleno who cnaplamed various bit® of the British forces dtmng tue Boer worry, and is now in Wellington, tells many stories. The rev. chaplain has, on many oocasionb, done his best to masUcate t)he cast-iron Army b-isomt. He libels that useful article of food!, which is a good deal more wholesome than, the average bread. However, he remarks that you either digest the basouots after eating tnem, or die jest after eatmig them. Thus he told the Wellington Savages, at their last corroiborree. The pardon also told his hearers that at Pridikant Kiloot — in tue Orange River Goiouy — tiie troops were short or firewood, and that hiw soldier servant was at some loss to obtain f veil to cook his master'^ mealie pap, e>o hie went away and oarne back with a paeoe of pulpit! That mealie pap was awfully good. At Wakers-troom' — or any other Dutch place — the officers wanted a dance. Tnere were only Dutch girls theie. Dutch girls of fifteen or twenty are nice — after that they are fat, and their only object, a veiy oommendiaible one, is to supply rifle shots fotr the Boer army. One young smb. at the dance put up his monocle to the weak eye' — the surrounding country was evidently weak, too-^and wandered over to a pietty little Boer meisje, who was resting on a seat and oomsuming a rusk amd 1 some coffee. "Pan-don me, is your programme full?" abked the "sub." "Ailemachtig, nay!" said 1 the sweet one. "I have eaten only one rusk and drunk one cup of coffee before already !" This verdoemed English language worries the Boer awfully. There was a little man wiho kept a "winkel" — store — at Devil's Hock. He was a Dutch-Scotchman — father a burgher, mother frae North o' Tweed. He didn't want to be disloyal to Britain. Boers came along,, and d'emandred stores. He had no store®. He gave them coffee without "sugar," and they cleared out. Next day came along a British captain — beautiful khaki, Sam Brown belt, eye-glass, and two orderlies. Had the storekeeper any stores? Yah! The officer would pay far them handsomely (and make a bit himself he said, with winking eye). Where were the stores? They were buried undfer the beets and sweet potatoes! in the garden ! The storekeeper gave the officr and' bis orderlies coffee with "sugar" in. (Oh, that "Gape smoke" !) Next day twenty-five Boers swept down on that store. The commandant wheeled the storekeeper up : "When I came to you, as a Boer you gave mci coffee without 'sugar.' Yesterdlay, I came to you as a British officer, with two of my best burghers dlressed as 'Tommies,' and l I get coffee and 'sugar.' Dig you under the beets and 1 sweet potatoes." Then did they watch, the storekeeper unearth has pile. Also dfrd they commandteer him 1 , and make him fight the yerdoemedl roodneks. Mr. Anderson is a Soot whose parents are Yorkshire people, and tth© burr stiM clings to his palate. He is to lecture shortly in the Town Hall on Africa and other things, and Mr. Seddom, will be chairman. Afterwards, he goes to Japan. * ■» * The Lance artist owes a debt of tihe very deepest gratitude to the Hon. C. H. Mills, who referred; to the senior member for Dunedin City as a political tomtit. Tihei "Par! lamentory Old Birds'" idlea owes its existence to the brilliant repartee of the statesman from over the Strait. More happenings in the South. A tradesman in one of the big cities was rather alarmed last week at the arrival of four men with a track containing picks, shovels, bars, pipes, and' various other implements. They stopped! outside his shop, and began tearing the pavement up. He asked! them what they were up to, and they toild hum they were going to repair the watermain, and see to the gas, and have a look at the sewer, and the electric cable, and thingis like that. He said no more. These men worked like elephants, andl made a hole half a chain long and six feet deep. They had a large crowd around them, but they worked on. * * * It was when the "ganger" went into the shop, and began to thump a hole through the flooring boards with a crowbar, that the shopkeeper began to protest. He rang up the Town Clerk's office and the Gas Company's works, to mention about these repairers. Neither the Town Clerk nor the gas manager knew a thing about it. It was just as the gang were putting on their coats — leaving the ilnmense cavern — that half-a-dozen, perspiring officials rushed up and gave some sharp, short orders. The workers assumed four blank expressions of dismay. and, as they were leaving for the asylum, the "ganger"_ remarked that he'd come back and finish 1 the job to-morrow. Curiously, none of those men returned to work im the morning.

Some tame ago a trusted young man fled his native town, and hit ooiit into the. expansive world. When he had gone, the people rushed round with billets of firewood to cleave him to tlhe brisket because he hadn't paid aony bills for quite a while. Afterwards, they burnt the firewood, and buried the axe, and things went on as if he had never been. Only last month one of the people of that town received a letter from that young man saying that he< had) become converted, and! was mow an elder in the Church of thei Only Ones, or something like that. He begged to send) a. cheque for £150 4s lOd, which was the totaJ amount he owed. Would the fmend distribute it? The friend' called! a meeting, and toiuohingly told! the tale of conversion, of the splendid work achieved by the Only Ones, and all the rest of it. Two days later, a wire from the same place that the young man's letter came from informed them that he hiad burgled! two hotels, one jeweller's sihop, a.nd a foundry office, and baidl got away with £500. He is 1 supposed 1 to have gone to Sydney. Now, the people who got that £150 odd are in a quandary. They don't know whether to ante up to the folks whose premises have been burgled. They held a prayer-meeting — and decided not to. One of the decorative features at the Wellington Racing Olub ball was the life-size artificial horse that stood gallantly m the main entrance, in exercise clothes. Th© committee had' christened the horse — a dapple grey — after Ganteen, the New Zealand Oup winner of a couple of years ago, and had cards printed to point the joke to the ff horsey." When it came near eight o'clock, the cards could not be found, and am energetic committee-man enquired of a vacant-faced waiter: "Where are the Canteen cards?" "Oh," said the/ man, "they're on the table in the 'all hupsitairs and l down hunder the gallery!" This was indeed where the refreshments were, and the man, who

had been in, the Army, oouldl mot think of any otiher canteen except that where the XXX. flow®. Ther© was a deal of chuckling over the joke throughout the evening.

Auckland prohibitionists palpitated with horror the other day, for one of their most prominent members learned from reliable sources — by a duly signed letter, in fact — that one of tJie Devonport ferry boat® carried beer. The boat was mentioned, and! the sleuthhounds of the pump girded on theox turned-down collars, entered their swal-low-tailed coats, combedl their sidewhiiskers, turned the whites of thear eyes up, and travelled repeatedly on that very boat, in order to ascertain to what an extent the evil traffic had 1 entered into the hitherto teetotal life of the boat that, had always been F-usfcamed on water hitherto.

For several days niothini£ was discovered. The private- detect, vp of the "cause'" took deeip-breathiiiie lessons so that he oould dietect the perfume, of alcohol at half-a-mile. Once he started on a auick run for the cabin. Did! he

not amell alcohol ? He did ! Some workmea were varnishing the insidie of the cabin. Foiled! again 1 Determined to run the iniquity to earth, he approached Use captain, folding has long, black gkxves across his immaculate bosom. "I believe," he said 1 , "you have beer on board ?" "We have," said the captain. "And can't you do without the cursed evil?" he moaned. The skipper said it wouldn't dlo, and. he wanted to know what the dickens the prohibitionist meant in interfering with Ms job anyhow? "Do you sell the beer, then ?" asked the horrified pumper, with the clammy dew of sadness bursting through his pores. "No, you fathead, but lam Beere, and skipper of this craft." Then the ticket-takeer sidled up, andi wantedl to kmow if the pumper had paid his fare. The look on the face of the sleuth-hound told that he was a true prohibitionist — hie denied himself everything — even a sixpenny fare.