Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 269, 26 August 1905, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt

JAPAN has ordered half-a-milkon English bikes, to be deliveiec 1 "when the war is over." But won't the present type of bike be obsolete in say ten years? • • * Miss Batt is the lady who is going to help find the North Pole — the oruly lady in the Pearing expedition. Muss Batt knows not what she does, nor how many hearts and heads will be broken about her. • * * Thus Hobart "Clipper" : — "A Maoriland cable says the duty on black twist tobacco imported. 1 into the Cook Islands has been reduced from 4s 6d to Is per lb. Seddon intends his Cook Island policy to end in smoke." • • * Miss Annette Kellerman, the Victorian swimmer, has "caught on" to such aoi extent in London that the "KeUerman walk' and other Kellerman things are strictly "correct form" in the crust a wee bit under the "upper" one. • • • A Sydiney paper complains that a gentleman recently called to the Upper House is "not quite right in 'bis upper Btorey." It looks as if the Sydiney paper regarded such a Legislative Councillor as a "rara avis," which is distinctly quaint of it. • # • One girl I know, according to a friend, was married in a "brown cloth travelling dress." Another was married "in a hiurry." Yet a third was married "in the Registry Office,' and a fourth was married "in a church." No accounting for taste. • • * A police joke rolling round is to the effect that a plain-clothes constable has beiem endeavouring to disguise himself wath a false beard. The useilessnjess of tihe disguise is apparent when it is aihown that the beard did not hide tihe policeman's feet. • • * I was quite unaware of the musical capabilities of a local bank-teller until Tuesday morning last. A man tried to pass a "false note" over the counter to him, and the solo perfoirmanos he put up should easily qualify him. as first tenor in the Amateur Operatic Company. • • • "The Sunday Bristles Bill" is what a noble Lord .called tihe Sunday Shops Gloaing Act in the House of Lords. The bill provided for the dosing of shops on Sunday — including barbers' — and! it went to its death by 49 votes to 14. Noble Lords could see in it complete disaster to this business. • ♦ • I went to a woman's political meeting last week. The lady with the red flowers in her hat remarked that she was a "woman of few words." I' agree. But, she used the few words she knew with sxw>h effect that I should imagine she was married, and that <c his" vocabulary would go rusty for want of use. • * * Good ideal Liverpool Corporation now builds ■workmen's cottages. Maximum rent, 2s 9d a week! Cottages built from destructor refuse — in the form of clinkers. What does the City Council of Wellington do with its clinkered dog and calcined rubbish? Well, it fires it through the top of the chimney on to my Sunday blouse, mostly. • • • There was a Wellington parson at Otaki last week. He went to the Maori settlement to wrestle in prayer with a large, fat Hone. Hone was found looking over the side of a sty at a magnificent pig — as fat as a surplus. The educated native, with a quizzical look on his features, remarked : "Ah, Mr. Soulsave, if we were only as fit to die!" » • • It appears that during His Excellency's visit to a country school he noticed a large Union Jack carefully tucked over the wall behind the dominie's desk. He pointed a moral and asked a question. "What," he asked, "is that Union Jack typical of. What is it there for?" A little boy upheld his hand. "Please, sir!" "Yes?" "It's to hid© the dirt on the wall, sir!" I don't vouch for it. A No-License man toldi it to me.

"You are as bad as Tommy Taylor for talking!" Thus a Masterton councillor to a fellow Solomon, and Tommy Taylor will read this and laugh. You cannot make Tommy believe he is "bad." ♦ ♦ * Thus a Shannon lady who witnessed one of the usual Parliamentary wrangles m the House the other day . "Legislators? More like a lot. of school-boys quarrelling over their marbles. I felt as if I'd like to take my boot off and throw it at them. Go agaia? Certainly not ' If I want to hear a large volume of bleating, I'll stay at home and' listen to the ewes and lambs coming in to water." * * » The ways of the Wellington Conporation hi regard, to suburban roads are novel. After recent heavy rains men oairefully shovelled th© mud off the middle of the road into huge heaps on the road-side. The rain descemdled, and carts came and squashed l it all back again. This is the usual way of dean inig suburban roads. Maybe I don't know much about it, but even a. woman may laugh at what appears to be an idiiotic waste of good muscle. ♦ • * Waihi is to hold a six-days' carnival at Christmas, in order to open the railway, which reaches there about then. Waihi has formed a committee, who will "have power to add to their numbers." I know Waiihi, and I have seen a committee-list, and it sets 1 out in dietail most of th© names of Waiheathens, amd bunches "mine managers," "lawyers," and all the other professions, so that if theire is any roan not on the committee he must have gone underground, and forgotten to come up. • * * A woman writes commenting om> the fact that fashion's male biped poodles wear golden bracelets round their ankles. Calls it vulgar. It is a little less vulgar than the villainous female French heeil and the still more awful open-work stocking. A bangle round the leg is not more savage- than a bracelet round tine wrist, or nothing round tihe busit. It is only the following of femaile fashions by empty-headed persons of the othet sex that will help us to see tihe how I ! ing absurdity of our sartorial excesses. • • « The New Zealand Cross worn by the late Antonio Rodiriquez, the brave soldier wno fought in the Maori war, Was sold to a London collector. There have been only twelve crosses awarded, and it really seems a shame that any distinction like this should become a mJere ourdo. Still, I remember an ancient V.C. man who habitually raised 9d on Ms medal when his pension was exhausted, and habitually reidieemed 1 it whle-n he was "flush." He explained' to me "that a cove might lose it when he gets a pot or two aboard."

An item in the telegraphic news concerning tiie rioting in Londonderry on the occasion ot the celebration of the relief of the historic oity, b rungs to mind the fact that human nature there still remains the same, although it was thought by many that times had changed, and that there wasn't a fight left on either side. As an instance of how things would seem to have altered), and that more peaceful, if, perhaps, degenerate, notions prevailed, it happened that a few months ago, when some excavations were being made in the oity, the workmen unearthed a lot of human remains, and, from the positions in which they were found!, it was evident the bodies had been hurraedHy interred, and that they were undioubtedly siege relics. Of course, they would be reinterred in the graveyard where sleeps many a hero of the sriege, and of whom it may well be said : — "Their swords are rusit, their bones are dust, Their souls are with the Lord, we trust." • * » Well, a day was set apart for the impressive ceremony, but "no be! was tolled, not a drum was heard 1 " as the mournful procession appeared at the gate. There were present to receive tlbje relics th rector (in mufti), the sexton and his mate, a notable citizen who yet cherishes the "good 1 old days" when fights were common, another citizen who lived near, the übiquitous reporter, a Wellington citizen who had come 1 to look on his native city again, the iav ■evitable email boy, and the u&iaail vagrant dog. Alas, these few composed the "crowd." * • • The cortege entered the churchyard. It was made tip of some not-too-weill-dressed youths, who pushed before them the useful wheelbarrow, on which, reposed sundry square black boxes containing the relics! It looked' fox aIJ the world like boys wheeling to the taig and bone merchant their lucky accumulations for the day. Then, the boxes were dropped into a hole, the "notable citizen" said a few wordis over tibje remains, the parson, said a few wordb more — something about their having doubtless already received Christian burial, which, from the evidence of

hasty interment, and being at siege time, may be disputed. The hole was filled up, and the "crowd" separated, sic transit, etc. Thus surely was am indication how t'hingt had changed, and that there would be no more feeling displayed at "celebrations." The "wolf and the lamb," of a surety. But the telegrams tell a different tale. The fierce light that beats on thrones soanebim.es deflects and jJluinmes postoffice officials. This luminosity us encircling at present the devoted heads of Messis. Larcombe, Willis, and West, of affidavit Fisiher — Sneddon — Seddon voucher fame. Mr. Laroombe is a married man, with a wife and family, and he is so far from being a notoriety hunter that the S'Prvice is amazed that he should come out into the fray. He has twenty years' service, most of which has been put in at Christchurch in clerical work. He is the man of the three with the quiet, unassuming manner, the fair complexion, and the big, light moustache. The tall, clean-shaven, good-1 ookmg man in the trio is Mr. Willis, who was a lieutenant in the ChristchuToh earns of which "Dahn" Fisher was captain. He has eighteen years' service. Why he, like the othpirs, should invite dismissal is not understood. Mr. West, the third swearer, is a public servant with thirteen years' service, and he was a sergeant in either the Sixth or Seventh New -Zealand! Comtdngemt for the African war. He probably met with Captain Seddon in Africa, aithonxssh it is hardly likely he met Captain Fisher, who was with the Scrapless Tenon. Mr. West while "hi** marble was still good," had a trip to 'Frisco as mail absent. Mes9i"s. iJarooimbe and West have been residlents of Wellington , and are therefore known in this city. * * »■ * The Newtown Liberal and Labour Federation foregathered in the Masonic Hall. Daniel-Street, on Monday nierht, and listened to an excellent selection of songs, recitations, erromaphone solos, and Mr. McNab. M H.R. The latter, per means of a blackboard and 1 a fluent tongue, explained' clearly the working of the absolute majority principle in voting. There was a large attendance, and heavy voting at the mock ballots.

A red-faoed individual rushed into thie local Telegraph Office a few days a@o, when the "memo" trouble was raging, and hastily soribbledi out the following wire: — "Mrs. Smith, Willisstreet. — Will be home dinner five minutes.— George." And wrote under instructions — "Memo. — Urgent. Take precedence." The clerk ooonted up the words first, as usual, and then, glancing at the instructions, leapt back as if shot, and aaw a wide grin spreading over the face of the practical joker. "We're not taking these sort of goods now, thank you!" said the clerk, and handled back the telegraphic fireworks, amid the giggles of a crowd of on-look-ers.