SNAPSHOTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10601, 9 March 1895, Page 6

SNAPSHOTS.

My excursion through the advertising columns this week hes nob brought to light any specially funny or striking announcement. I have, however, coma across a puzzle, iu tho shape of a man who wants to purchase a “ desen.trogator.” Why anybody should want to buy an article with each a fearful name I can’t imagine. By the way, does anyone know what a “deaentrogator” is ? I thought at first it was a clothing advertisement, and had reference to “decent toga,” but that interpretation had to bo abandoned. Perhaps the intelligent compositor who set up the word will explain. A humorous advertiser announces that his “ guns must go off at reduced pricee !” This somehow reminds me of the upholsterer who announced that his “ carpets couldn’t be beaten.” I hope the guns wont hang fire, but will go like—snapshots! Less pleasant sensations were -created by the intimation that a labour agency waa prepared to recommend servants to “ the gentry.” .1 tim not a straight-out Socialist, but I sm democratic enough to wautto know : Who are the gentry ? Is there a Now Zealand Debrett that contains the names, pedigrees and crests of our gentry ? If jao, I should hugely enjoy a perusal of it. Gentry, indeed! r

Even the Wesleyana do not open their mouths and shut their eyes and swallow all that the organ of prohibition sends them. This was rather neatly illustrated during the sitting of the Conference at Nelson. One reverend gentleman, in the course of an address, remarked that honourable mention must be made of the Prohibitionist for its efforts in the cause of temperance. There was applause at this point; but it subsided when the speaker said he had not finished his sentence and the mark of approval was a little “previous,” as he meant to add that he did not necessarily endorse all that appeared in that paper. Members of the Conference looked rather foolish for a moment, and then they covered their confusion by laughing. • # # “Liberty! What deads are done in thy name!” lam tempted to give these historic words a local application by reading a news item tp -the effect that the Auckland NationaL Association is about to start a, monthly, journal called Liberty, to further' the objects •of that high old Conservative organisation. One may well ask, “ What’a in a- name ?” * I can well imagine the sort of liberty that will bo preached by the organ of the National Association. It will resemble that of Biglow’a pious editor It’s well enough agin a king To dror revolvers and triggers; But Liberty's a kind o’ tiring That don’t agree with niggers. Nor with “mere band-workers” or the common orders of New Zealand. I. am free to say that Liberty will pose as the exponent of freedom—free importation of shoddy goods, free immigration of Coolie and contract labour, and other things that are “mote free than welcome.” The higher liberty, which aims at suppressing evil wherever possible and raising tha tone of national life, will have no place in its creed, if it really preaches the doctrines of the National Association. By the way, I would suggest, for the sake of completeness, that the title of the projected paper should be amplified to Liberty-~Equality-~ Fraternity t * * * We hear a good deal nowadays about the nerve and daring of the New Women ; but I question whether any of these ladies could come up to the exploit of a certain Matecfaale Lafebvre, a Frenchwoman of plebeian extraction. In a book just published, entitled “ Reminiscences of the Court of the Empress Josephine,” the Marechale’s account of how she lost and recovered a valuable diamond is given She is addressing the Empress, and says : “ I thought I had lost my large diamond. I was certain I had left it in my room; when I came home it was gone. I asked those who were there; they told me as how none but the scrubber of my floors was in it. He waa in the saloon, whichJie was just finishing; I makes him come in, and I tells him. ‘Scoundrel,’ I says, • you have my large diamond; I must have it, because I values it; ’tis the first that Lefabvre gave me. Come, out with it, and I shan’t do you anything.’ My lad says he hasn’t got it. Ho was a black; I couldn’t see if he blushed; but I still says to him that I want my large diamond, and I orders him to empty his pockets. ‘Nothing in my hands, nothing in my pockets,’ says he. ‘Well, then, scoundrel, atrip.’ Ha hesitates; but I am nob to be led in this manner; not I, indeed. ‘ Strip, you rogue; stark naked, I desire, or I calls my servants to kill yon.’ At lest ho strips as naked as a worm, and I found my diamond. Hera it is. A fine lady, howsomever, would have lost it.” Tho story is new, and may be true. I commend it to the attention of tha “advanced ” women of to-day who fancy they are strongminded.

Tha pranks of the _ festive Auckland athletes at Napier during the late championship meeting included, it seems, the committing of an assault upon, the Hon Captain Euasell. The gallant captain, however, makes light of the affair. He writes thus to tha local Telegraph:-—" I notice a paragraph going tha rounds of the papers alluding to the tact that after luncheon with the amateur athletes at Stortford Lodge I was hit on the arm by a frozen kidney. That is true—at least I believe it had once- been frozen, bnt it had been thawed, probably in an athlete’s breeches pockets. I admit I should have preferred the kidney devilled for breakfast to cold after lunch, bnt I feel sure the missile was not aimed at me; it certainly did not hurt me. * * * I should not like to cast a atone at youthful merriment; It might hurt more than a flabby kidney." That is a most admirable spirit to display, and I feel inclined to forgive the leader of the Opposition for hia quack doctor jokes at tho expense of tho Premier. It is very evident that the gallant captain has the boyish spirit in him still, and a man of that kidney must not always be taken seriously. °» * #

A wavs of prudish Puritanism seems to be pausing over Anglo-Sasondom. That Glasgow Police Bill proposal to fine people found with playing cards in their homes is but one of the signs of this flood of social reform. In England there is an active Anti-Gambling League whose influence baa become so strong that the Chief Justice, Lord Eusaell (formerly Sir Charles Eusaell) has felt constrained to resign his membership of the Jocfcey Club. The League had the daring to prosecute three “noble Lords,” the Earl of March, the Earl of Ellesmere and Lord Eendleshaw, for betting in the ring at Newmarket, but the summonses were dismissed. A prosecution, of the Jockey Club for keeping betting enclosures was similarly dealt with, and the Court refused to slate a case for appeal. We in New Zealand will feel the effects of this anti-gambling crusade. There was some talk at the recent Wesleyan Conference at Nelson about abolishing the totalisator and providing penalties for newspapers that published betting odds. For the present, however, “ cakes and ale ” may still be had in the land, and the " betting machine ” is unmolested. I see that the highly moral State of New York has just adopted a new Constitution which forbids “gambling in any form,” even upon election contests! Thai is the place where the iniquities of “Tammany” were wont to be perpetrated. Evidently the world is in for one of its periodic fits of painful goodness. _ PiAHEUB.