After Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 277, 21 October 1905, Page 10

After Tea Gossip

GENERAL Booth thinks of entering the British Parliament, because the necessities of the poor demand it. The trouble is that British members of Parliament don't get paid. There are many men who are a good deal more concerned about the expenditure of public money than the diture of private money on grocery bills and) those sort of things. * * * Reading a litle pamphlet by Dr. A. C. Carson-Towers, I find this: "Do not bathe before or after meals." It may be good medical advice, but it sounds grubby, don't you think? • • • Football must be fearfully exciting in Australian . country towns. Says a bush paper: "The town brass band played the whole afternoon to break the monotony. This is the band) that won tibe contest." ♦ * ♦ Said Miss Grade, who was thirty and coy, "Don't dare kiss me, you terrible boy ; Don't you do it — it's bad', I shall holler for dad." (What she did was to holler for joy.) Proposed in the Federal House that every member who is absent when the roll is called shall be fined! £1, the money to be given, to the unemployed fund. If someone would! get a measure to this effect passed! in New Zealand, it would be worth £30 a day to the unemployed 1 . Most papers in mentioning Dowie and his paralysis — denied by his Melbourne agent — talk of ham as the "American quack" or "the Yankee humbug," and so on. But, it should be remembered that Dowie is a colonial product. He is an Australian, and, of course, nobody over there ever rejoices over the fact. • • w A sporting item. It was at a country race meeting. Four horses in the handicap. The chestnut and the black led all the way, and! flashed past the post a dead heat. Said the judge, who was not a teetotaller : "I give the race to the piebald!" I don't understand racing, but a man tells me it is true — and I can see the joke, anyhow. • • * Lady Fanshawe has evinced 1 a dislike to young naval men marrying Australian girls. She hasn't actually forbidden it, but you never know what instructions His Excellency the Admiral may have got. Of course, you know as well as I that tlie grand*© dames of both the navy and army "run" both branches of His Majesty's forces? No? Yes, really ! • • •» A tragedy • The chemist turned red, And the pretty girl blushed ; "A sponge-bath," she said. The chemist turned! red. "A batch-sponge instead," She corrected, and! flushed ; The chemist turned red, And the pretty girl blushed. • • * I hear that a young doctor, who was about to be married, has insisted that his fiancee shall give up corsets and high-heeled boots, "because he doesn't want the woman he loves to injure her health." She graciously consented if he would give up cigarettes' and whisky. It was the little rift that ensued whereby a handsome actor on tour mended the melody in the heart of the girl. They are to be wed in March next — and she will wear corsets. • • • I was struck with the beautiful blue eyes of a sweet-faced woman in a car the other day. She had two children — fine, strong, beautiful boys. "Is this child over three ?" asked 1 the conductor. She said the child wasn't. "And this one?" he asked indicating the other. "Oh, they're twins, you know!" smiled she. Then, im a subsequent burst of family history to a motherly old soul alongside she mentioned! casually that Johnnie had beembom in Sydney, although his brother (twin) was a young "Wellingtonian. I got off at the next stopping-place, and! watered a lamppost with my tears.

One pretty near-by local Parliamentary candidate has a ' -platform' which is surely wide enough for all. Up to now he has shown that the fate of the nation depends upon free schoolbooks tor children. , » . Lady tripped while carrying a kettle of boiling water, and the water scaldted her badly. The doctor^ skinned fortyeight frogs, and patched! her up. J«elt a bit bare for a few houis, and then began to feel better. Can now wear lownecked evening dress. Tale from America. Pass the salt, please ! Mr. D. Robertson said the other day in Wellington that the fault of the New Zealand boy was that he was too well treated at home. In reprinting this infoimation, ninety-eight New Zealand country papers assert that Mr. Robertson said the New Zealand boy was "too well trained." Seems to be a fairly amiable fault, doesn't it? • * * One of windy Wellington's) windiest word-throwers, who is hardly of a meek temperament, and 1 not particularly modest began a speech the other evemmg "Mr. Chairman,, ladies and gentleman, I have lived quite long enough—" And when a big, bass voice from the front seats roared : "So you have, old ©bap ; quite right!" it sort of upset the thread of his just-begun narrative. • * " A "high" life episode. King Edward persdstenly sends venison to lots of hospitals. Reminds me that a local deer-shooter got tired) of seeing a haunch of venison in his own house, and sent it to a hospital — last year. The house-surgeon, on coming into the hospital the morning after, told the caretaker to at once send 1 a plumber to look to the drains of the hospital ! Here is a problem hard to prove, Of that there is no doubt ; Which takes less tarne — to fall in love ; Or, when in love, fall out? « • * I am rather afraid tihat Home people, examining the splendid New Zealand illustrated Christmas numbers, will imagine that the whole population consists of Maoris. English readers of this par are now told that it is a pretty hard iob to scare up enough picturesque Maoris to fill a Christmas number. A little more white, and a little less eho'oolate, would liven up a lot of Christmas literature. • • • A propos of that Home solicitor of whom it was cabled that be had been convicted and sentenced on a^ charge of oattle, horse, and sheep maiming, the -jury "recommended him to mercy on account of his social position." He was the son of a parson. And, although we hye in enlightened New Zealand, distinct bias 'has been siiiown, here m cases I could specify by judges in dealing with men of social standing. • • • When young New Zealander P. A. Vaile went along to Buckingham Palace to see the King about shooting straight the other day, His Majesty was at Marienbad. He wore a dark blue short coat, white trousers, grey top hat, brown shoes, and coloured 1 shirt with double collar.. Before the day was out there was a rush to the telegraph office, and King Edward had the sincerest flattery paid' him by ordfers beung wired to the Austrian capital for esact copies. The only man who has the courage to wear a grey bell-topper in Wellington is a business man of Scotch extraction, who is a volunteer officer. Know him?