Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 125, 22 November 1902, Page 6

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

"Conscience makes cowards of us all" —sometimes. Tisler, the Australian murderer of Sangal, gained 30lb in weight while in gaol. Sounds as if he was on a holiday, recuperating strength, doesn't it? I notice that Adelaide has initiated the Jellicoe idea of free legal advice to persons not able to pay for it. Mr. Paris Nesbit, K.C, is setting aside Friday morning for free advice, and in the afternoon he will arbitrate between parties gratis, whether they can pay for it or no. Have you studied the city electoral roll? If not do so. In it you will find that one lady at least has been more than ordinarily truthful. Her name is duly entered up and her duties are called "domestic troubles." One Wairarapa lady boldly states that she is "a farmer's drudge." * * * A Sydney naper boldly states that the list of' Melbourne Cup suicides has been suppressed this year. There is a Monte Carlist touch about this which however, is probably not true. * * * Talking about "Cups," reminds me that, in Adelaide, in 1890, a policeman drew the bie money in "Tatts. A telegraph messenger brought the wire to Robert in King William-street. Robert opened it, gasped, and fell to rise no more. He was dead. Ido not want to get an unaccustomed £30.000, and, anyhow, one cannot invest in Tattersall s now, can one? No? This year's '.'consultation" on the Caulfield Cup filled at 100,000 subscribers, two others on "the" Cup filled two weeks before the race, and a third filled in due time. The Commonwealth, in "stopping" these consultations lost £50,000 in revenue. They are putting betting down in the colonies! * * * Curious how the tastes of members of the same f amil - vary. I know an Auckland family the members of which are engaged in jobs widely gulfed. One is a barrister, one is a carter, another wields a butcher's cleaver, and the "old man" is a tinsmith. One of the Fitzgeralds', brother to the circus folk, is a Labour politician, barrister, and editor. He wields the premier pen for the Sydney "Freeman's Journal." Unlike hi® brothers, he does not believe in "horseplay." Rev. W. J. Elliott was dealt with in the Lance last week. However, I find that even interviewers do not discover everything. For instance, he preached his first sermon when he was sixteen, and was Chief Templar of an 1.0. G.T. lodge at the same youthful period. He is a great cricketer. Three years ago, in Otago, the reverend willow wielders average in two matches was twelve wieketsi for twenty-two runs, and four wickets for twelve runs respective^. He is a fisher of trout, as well as or men. He claims to hold the record for the colony, by catching fifteen trout in fifteen minutes, using crickets for bait. * * * A gentleman of ruddy complexion, who was a passenger by the Southern boat that brought the Southern clergymen up to the Presbyterian Assembly, told me this stor^. In the saloon, at meal times the parsons were parcelled off on one side of the table, the canners and others vis-a-vis. The cloth told tales — gentle little tales — about lambs, and things for a start, until the other side set out to beat them. "Well "said the layman with the tale on King s Birthday, "me and the wife and kids did not know what to do. Don't patronise races you know (winking at the parsons). Our kiddie said 'Pa, let us go and see the eagles.' + * * 'I said there wern't any eagles around here. 'Oh, yes, plenty,' said little Tom. 'You come down to Sumner, and I'll show you them.' We took the train to Stunner. ' 'Well, young 'un, where are your eagles?' I asked. 'Why there and there,' he said, pointing to the gulls flying around. 'They ain't eagles: they're seagulls.' 'But, there are he^ gulls amongst them, ain't there, paP" The company around the table are alleged to have laughed.

Sydney's tram-slaughter bill for a few months is appalling. From January, 1900, to September of this year, 339 nassengers were injured and twenty-three killed. This is exclusive of neople knocked over who were not. passengers. Now, is Willis-street going to be widened before or after the arrival of the modern man-slayer? One meets with adventure in the Manawatu Gorge sometimes. A young lady, cycling in the dark, "noticed' an obstruction. She dismounted, and found a dead hare between the mudeuard and the wheel. She had killed it as she rode along without knowing it. Hares in that, vicinity ha,ve evidently that tired feeling in a chronic form. * * * Worthington's place in the pulpit of Sydney Unitarian Church has been taken by Mr Charles Bright. Mr. Bnerht is an ex-journalist, and was for many years a leader writer for the Melbourne ""Age." He was also in great vosrue from twenty to twenty-five years in New Zealand, and particularly in Dunedin, as a Freethought lecturer A long way higher type of man than the hypocritical Worthmgton. There was a free distribution of wearing annarel, particularly shirts during the gale on Monday. The svght of a rotund, softwoods man ehasmor his stock-in-trade down Cuba-«treet and failing to get. a slippery garment which hung itself out on the telephone wires like a signal of distress, amused everybody but the merchant. Anyone in want of corrugated iron had onl~ to stop the various sheets hurtling through the atmosphere. I wonder who "Henry Wrierht" is? He has issued a circular to "Epicene Women," who are interested m the elections, asking them not to call on him, but to stay at home and cook their husbands' dinners, and other things. Evidently a woman hater. Oh. well, it is delightful to have such frank gentlemen living in. Wellington. lam interested in the elections. 'but I shall not call for "Henry Wrisht's" vote. There s 'ears to be nothing epicene about him. In a recent case of death from "alcoholic poisonong," at Carterton, the jury said one licensee deserved credit for having refused the victim drink. Under the circumstances ensuing, this was tantamount, to saying that, because a. person found a half-dead man in the gutter and refused to kick him, that person was to be highly commended. A publican receiving the thanks of a jury for not breaking the law is a distinctly Gilbertian situation. * * * The Duke of Teck, brother of the Princess of Wales, has gone into business. His name is in the partnership of a firm of London stockbrokers. Twenty or thirty years a"~ if an aristocrat had dared to do anything for a living he would have been ostracised. It is believed that the American heiress industry has altered all that. The Prince of Wales, by the way, is said to be an expert carpenter, but he is not allowed to go round palaces knocking nails in promiscuously. * • * Auckland enterprise The "Star" published, previous to the arrival of particulars about the Elingamite wreck, the impressions a clairvoyant had received. By that moans the feelings of the relatives of the unfortunate people were harrowed before it was necessary. Abo, the gifted person, who saw the wreck in her sleep in Auckland, observed nothing that really took place, and merely stabbed the feelings (per medium of the "Star") in a cruel and absolutely heartless manner. * * * I noticed a oanny person, in the vicinity of Courtenay Place, boarded up the front of his grocery store as soon as possible after the first zephyr, and I daresay he had good reason. That wind found out unskilful work. It took a delight in lifting skylights off, and levelling advertisement hoarding. Men quaked and women trembled, and people not in the habit of praying offered up an unaccustomed orison for the poor people in that missing Elingamite boat and raft. A marvellous thing is a woman in a long-tailed skirt on these occasions. Miss Bloomer must have lived in a windy city when she shocked Christendom by appearin- in exterior bifurcations, and Lady Florence Dixie, that other apostle of dress reform, may have been induced to manfully don them bv hearing of Wellington.