Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 101, 7 June 1902, Page 7

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

Hi Barton is the best paid of all the coloni.il Premieis His salary is £2.)00 a \ear The Premier of Canada is content with £Jb44- and Our Dick get*, £l(i()O • * * An Lgmunt paper tells the woild about the whale that vras caught at Te Awite tin- other day. It says its ' buboler co\eicd half-an-acre This is the iceoid spout." m whale history. . » * Picimer Barton is telling t'othersiders he has not averaged more than five hours a day in bed for thirty-six years and a crabbed wnter remarks that lie neve i knew till now how many hours the c-hampion banquetter spent at his meals' * Sir John Foirest has been recenth gnvino- the Commonwealth Cabinet away. He says, there are too many captains in the ship, and each wants to steer an indonendent course In New Zealand, on the contiarv, there is only one man at the helm, and the first mate is able to take his place at any time. • • * Some of the papers are making merry over Wilson Barrett's promised novel and play "The Never Never Land. As Wilson himself was never in the never ne\er country, some of them are ■suggesting that his work is really a bit of satne on the people who went to his perf 01 mances "on the never • • * Mi J L- Parsons, who has iust been elected to the South Australian Legislative Council, is an old New Zealander. Many years ago he filled a Baptist pulpit in Dunedm, but after he left this Solonv he stepped down from the pulpit and dived into politics And the South Austiahans have kept him in politics ever since. Tattersall's sweeps aie a gilt-edged kind of revenue It is said tnat George Adams, whose stace name, so to speak is, Tattersall's will soon be the biggest property owner in Hobart. He *Jreach owns a brewery and some six hotels and now proposes to erect a modern hotel which shall open the eves of thp Tassies. A t'other-side paper I see is telling its readers that "the strongest proof of the genuineness of Premier Dick's latterday loyalty is the fact that he is now nexer heard to sing 'The Wearing of the Green,' whereas a few years ago ne was eternally humming the air, and would burst into loud song on the slightest provocation." • • * English papers, that profe&s tobe well-informed, assert that Sir Wilfrid Launer, Premier of Canada, received an intimation that if he chose he could obtain a peerage as a Coronation girt, but that he preferred to remain a commoner I wonder if Our Die* has selected his dukedom yet It is some time now since he cho<=e his motto and coat-of-arms • •» • When the late Mr Cecil Rhodes' great educational scheme gets into tun woiking order there will be sixty Butish oolonial* 104 Americans, and fifteen Get mans in iesiden.ee at Oxford, each holding a Cecil Rhodes scholaiship, with £300 a year to spend— excepting the Germans, who, for some reason, are only to get £250. Each scholarship reckoned at o pei cent , is equivalent to a gift of £6000. \ local physician, at an At Home the other day bemoaned the code of professional etiquette that prevented doctois (at least in New Zealand) from advertising A politician, whose fortune was made by the "given away w^b a pound of tea" present, suggested that the physician should give an oak cotnn or a cemetery allotment to eve y pur-cha-er of £20 woith of medical comforts Na^° # I notice that Federal politicians are keeping abreast of the times. They are asking Parliament for the services of tw o lady typists each. Their excuse for specifying that the operators shall be females is that they are smarter than the man variety. Probably, Federal Parliament will supply them with the cheap and ornamental luxury. It the question was brought before the female electors members' wives would vote a straight out "No 1 " don't you think?

Have you heard that Lord Methven, about the mobt unfortunate general in South Africa bears au ill-omened name. They say it's moaning; in Welsh is "to tail " * *• * The smalle&t bab> m the woild is baicl to be a month old infant in Amciiea, which weighs exactly lib It is healthy and perfect m eveiv paiticular. The mother's wedding ling will slip o\ei the baby's hand up to ti-v elbow A firm of Sydney publishers is bringing out a volume of verses bv Lieutenant Morant, of the Bush Veldt Carbineers who was tried by court-martial and shot for shooting down unarmed Boers. Probably his tragic end will boom the book * * * A young lady conesponxlent wntes to me from Woodville asking me whether lu&sing will cure freckles She has been told so. but wants to be sine Well, really, I haven't any experience to guide me in this delicate matter, but *till the lemedv is so simple that it can be easily tried * » » Poor De Rougement after all his marvellous Munohausen exploits is old and practically penniless in Melbourne, while his wife and children are sump ham for maintenance. Little wonder that he wishes himself back in that marvellous country his imagination constructed. There were no duns or tailors' bills there. » * * Lord Hopetouu must have had large expectations when he throws up his billet because the Commonwealth won't pay more than £10,000 The oresident of the United States manages to keep state and pieside over eighty millions of people for no larger amount, and £10,000 proves quite sufficient for the Karl of Mmto, Governor-Geneial of Canada. * • * Clement L. Wiagge, the Queensland weather prophet, is retrenched, but is "raising the wind" quite as. energetically as in the days of yore, and storm bulletins, with a series of illustrated lecture entertainments. Clement is <* man of resource, and has always got his weather eye lifting. In one of these popular lectures he lifts the veil, and lets everyone know how the w ork of the Weather Bureau is done. * • • I note that Q.M.S. Jonson, of the Sixth Contingent, has presented an altaa- cloth to All Saints' Church, at Foxton. He makes no bones about the fact that he took the cloth from a chapel at Wepener, and th^ church makes no bones about taking it. I remembei the furore that was cieated when a trooper looted and sent home a much-prized and ancient Dutch family bible. Seems that sentiment is dead Sacrament from a looted table-oloth. Ugh' * • « The Miss Connell who met such a traguo death at Paerata, last week, appears to have been a younger sister of the Miss Connell who was living m Wellington two and a half years ago. Her age was only nineteen, and her name was Theodora Douglas Connell. One of her brothers is Lieutenant Aitken Connell, of the Seventh Contingent. It seems she was sent to a neighboui 's fOlf 01 the loan, of a fowlmg-piece, and, on returning, it is surmised she loaded one barrel for a shot at a rabbit, and, by some accident, it w ent off and shot her through the heart Exhibition Joubert, who ran the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dnnedin, in 1889, and has been running exhibitions at sundry times and places since then, is on the 19b once moie I see that he is advertising an .international exhibition in. Melbourne, at the close of the year, to commemorate the founding of the Australian Commonwealth. Rather behind the fair isn't it? By the way, Melbourne is just now providing itself with two fresh street statues — one of Queen Victoria and the otliei of Bobbie Bums Wonder if Wellington will ever manage to get that statue of the Queen for which the hat went round a year ago.