ACROSS THE STRAIT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 119, 18 May 1909, Page 2

ACROSS THE STRAIT.

GOSSIP FROM THE EMPIRE CITY. [prom our correspondent.] WELLINGTON, Monday. Wellington's latest cause celibre is over, and Miss May Hallett, alias May Curtain, alias Miss CampbellBannerman, steps out of the dock and returns to her avocation, of' "pulling beer" in a Cuba Street pub. God bless that noble institution the. common jury! To the existence of this institution and to the clever special pleading of her counsel, Mr Wilford, an adventuress goes free. A more gross travesty of justice a Wellington Court has never witnessed. The snobbishness of certain Wellington people played right into the young woman's hands, and Mr Wilford's clever and cruelly humorous cross examination of Mr Clifford "did"' the rest. The episode may have one good result in teaching our snobocracy to be a little more careful in "taking up" supposed scions, of English' swell society, and making much of them. Is it a feeler? This morning's Times suggests a short session of Parliament, and an adjournment so as to allow the Prime Minister to go to London to attend the Imperial Defence Conference, a longer, session to ensue upon his return. It is certainly most desirable that Sir Joseph should represent the Dominion at this conference, but I am afraid that the "short .session" proposal will not be favoured by Parliament. I may be j wrong, but I stick to my opinion that Sir Joseph will, not go. It is a great j

pity, but-."there .are.so many important questions to be dealt "with that Parliament is not likely to agree to the suggested adjournment. > A popular young Wellingtonian, Mr Ji M. Ilott, son of. a well-known local advertising agent; is ix> marry the "daughter of Mr Clarence Kidman, a gentleman who is known as "the. Australian Cattle' King;" Mr Ilottvis a very likeable young fellow, prominent in the V.M.C.A. movement,, arid a winner of several prizes for elocution and debating. . If all the accounts one reads of.his prospective father-in-law's colossal wealth are true, Mr Ilott must be accounted a remarkably fortunate1; young man to have secured such a rich matrimonial prize, as the "Cattle "King's" only daughter. I see the Minister for Public Works, the commonsense arid outspoken "Roddy" McKenzie, has had the courage to tell a Gisborne deputation some home truths about that mad scheme, the Napier-Gisborne. railway. As Mr McKenzie says, a line from Gisborne to Wairoa is warrantable, but when one of the deputation talked about the NapierWairoa line being a "link in the grand East Coast chain," the Minister bluntly remarked: "And I am aware it will take a few millions to make." As I have told you before, the country between Napier and Wairoa is possibly one of the roughest and most' precipitous districts in the Dominion, and the cost of a railway through such country would be something enormous. It's no good nowadays wasting time in counselling the Government to enter upon such mad projects. There's no money to spare, apparently, for legitimate trunk line completion, and until the South Island line is complete ' branch lines of all kinds should, and I believe willbe, sternly tabooed. And yet peoplej will ask for these lines. The Clutha Valley settlers want a line, I notice, and no. doubt they can make out a very fair prima facie case. \ But j where is the money to come from? That's the question, and it is a question which has to be answered by the' Finance Minister, not the Clutha Valley-settlers. The Kaiser,' the great "He who must be obeyed" of the Fatherland, is an able, progressive ruler, and the way in which he has argued, cajoled, and dragooned the German nation i'into carrying out his huge naval programme stamps him as a monarch of immense personal influence, and strength of character and will. But he has surely taken on the toughest of contracts when he decrees that the1 German soldier shall in future make tea his staple drink, instead of coffee and beer. Until very late years tea was practically unknown as a bever-; age on the Continent. "Le five o'clock" has, I believe, been introduced into France by Anglo-maniacs,-and by the ever-increasing English community in Paris, but the average ( Frenchman would as soon think of' drinking tea as, well, say, the Rev. Mr Isitt would think of taking a "nobbier" of whisky. Your French^ man doesn't recognise "tea-time." His first breakfast consists of a bowl of coffee—or sometimes bouillon, or thin' gravy soup—and a ( chunk of most delicious bread. At noon he has his second breakfast, soup, fish, meat, /etc., with wine, or wine diluted with water, and a small cup of black coffee to "top up" with. Then at. six or seven he has his dinner, arid there is an end to his meals. Supper he rarely touches, save in" Paris, after the theatre, and the six o'clock "tea" br "meat tea" of the middle-class Englishman he ignores. The German lives much on the same lines. A good; cup, of tea, as we New Zealanders know it, \is one of the hardest things to get in a provincial French or German town. : * V"

But the German soldier is to be made to drinktea in preference to cbffee or beer. Frankly, I can't believe , it. You get splendid coffee in Germany, and the light and wonderfully cheap beer of Kaiserland is a perfect delight to a thirsty soul. And just can't the average Deutscher put away beer! You have only to go into a beer cellar or. restaurant or cafe in Munich, Dresden, or Berlin to understand the German's capacity for beer. With my. own eyes have I seen a young German student lower seven successive "seidels" -— long glasses with metal tops' and bottoms, each holding'nearly a pint and a-half —within an hour or so. Heaven only knows how they; can hold it all I And some of the German ladies can equal the men in beer Willing. Perhaps the Kaiser thinks that tea won't fatten up his soldiers so much as beer undoubtedly does. But I foresee trouble ahead when that edict is put into force. No beer for the German soldier! Why, it's enough to cause a, general mutiny against tjhe Lord of Potsdam!