TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 151, 27 June 1888, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

Jubilee Minstrels open to night. The " end men " are to be ladies. Right to a T.—The increased tea duty ! Webbe's 41sb musical evening at St. James's Hall to-night. Caledonian high jinks to-night! Kilts and bagpipes at the Foresters' Hall. Pupil teachers' examinations are proceeding.

A miss-cackle-lay-shun—An over-ripe egg-

The Free Library catalogue will be finished in a few weeks.

Dr. Metcalfe, of Norfolk Island, is in Auckland on his way to England. " Mr Perkins, of New Jersey," will ba found on our seventh page to-night.

Rev. Geo. Brown is here en route for Tonga, to take charge of the Wesleyan mission.

Consolation for Wellington people.— Earthquakes are very aristocratic —at leasb they always belong to the upper crust. It is 32 years this month since the Pitcairn Islanders were removed to Norfolk Island.

A man employed at Auckland Roller Mills had his foot badly crushed yesterday by a dray passing over it. Mr Morley, who committed suicide yesterday, had a brother whose body was found in Auckland harbour some time ago.

Bishop Cowie, of Auckland, is to preach in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on Sunday, July lJjth. It is stated upon reliable authority thab the teacher with a glass eye has at least one refractory pupil. The reason some men can't make both ends meet is because they are too busily engaged in making one end drink. When a young man detects the first evidence of hair on his upper lip he feels elevated, when in reality it is a sort of coming down. Mr F. Currie, salesman at Messrs Wingate, Burns and Co.'s, had. his left arm broken yesterday by falling about fifteen feet when taking goods from a high shelf. Sir Andrew .Barclay Walker, formerly Mayor of Liverpool, has offered to give £250,000 towards building a cathedral in fchtit city.

England is the greatest champagnedrinking country in the world. The annual consumption is said to be not less than 5,000,000 bottles.

At a butcher's shop in Kensington, New Zealand meat is selling at the following rates : —Mutton, legs, 7£d per lb ; loin chops, lOd; beef, sirloins, 9£d ; rump steak, Is Id.

The European situation is becoming more and more unbearable. The latest outrage was afc a concert in Sb. Petersburg, where two selections were played by forty-eight pianists upon twenty-four grand pianos. Great Britain's "drink bill" for 1887 is published and amounts to £125,000,000. Of this £36,000,000 was spent for spirits, £75,000,000 for beer, £12,500,000 for wine, and £1,500,000 for cider and native wines.

A significant sign of French decadence. There were 60,636 births in Paris last year. There were 57,092 deaths during the same period, of which more than 10,000 were due to pulmonary diseases.

Since the German armies overran French soil it has been fortified at every point, at the enormous cost of a hundred and fifty million pounds sterling, and only a few weeks ago an additional million and a half was voted to strengthen the fortifications on the coast.

Am Auckland merchant who. shipped uninsured a valuable parcel by the Hawea to a Southern firm, enclosing to them a p.n. for acceptance in the usual way, received a day or so ago the p. n. returned, with the touching reply : " Dear sir,—l will accepb the p.n. when the goods arrive.— Yours,, etc., etc."

Ajs a result of the tariff alterations, the following dialogue took place in a Parnell mansion this morning:—Mrs Shortpurse— ' Maria, you must be more careful with tha tea now, because they've raised the duty and made it so dear.' Maria Harm—' Lor* mum, and have they raised the duty on drapery too V Mrs S—' Yes, I believe so. Why ?' Maria Harm—• 'Cos, if they have* you'll just have to raise my wages according or else I gives you my month!'