Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 130, 27 December 1902, Page 6

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

Curious way the foreman of a Southern jury had of announcing that a man found drowned had committed suicide while of unsound mind. To the judge he said • "The jury are all of one mmd — temporarily insane." * * * Sydney "Newsletter," commenting on a recent Lance paragraph, deprecating the ructions caused bv exchanges of shearers between Australia and New Zealand, remarks in this connection "Let New Zealand reply by quarantining every darned Australian who dares to approach her shores." * * * Don't be in too great a hurry. A young man, who was goin? to get mairied somewhere near New Plymouth, the ottiher day, called in to the barber's to get a shave. He excitedly sneezed, and the barber cut a piece of hisi nose off. On arrival at the church, the bride refused to have the rest of him. He claims £900 damages for loss of two drachms of nose. • • ♦ A "blow" from Yankee-land After a long series of tests, New Zealand has found the American locomotives are muoh better than English engines. Nothing else should have been expected as a reralt, and hence it was a waste of good time and money to make the test at all. Yankee mechanics are worldbeaters at maikinff anything." Garnegies and Pierpont Morgans, for instance? * * * It is an old game in Australia for men in "out back" camps to- label their flour bag "poison." It is supposed to keep swagmen from dipping into it. One man in, the "mallee" country recently struck such a "poisoned" bag in a boundary rider's hut. Of course, he stole most of it, and, afterwards mixed what was left in the baig with some arsetnic found on the shelf, and stuck a. label upon it . "Now it is !" • • • I am afraid that young New Zealanders are more "tired" than Australians. A young man walked from the West Coast to Lyttelton, and was arrested for vagrancy. He said he was exhausted. An Australian, when he sets out to> 'Wag it," thinks: little of going from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria, through the Northern Territory, and back again, to escape work. "We've got a lot to learn in New Zealand yet. • « • Mr. Bree, am ex-oitizen of Taihajpe, went to Shannon lately, and the Taihapians gave him sovereigns and a send off. Why I notice this is because Mr. Bree was so delightfully refreshing in his reply to the sovereigns. He sa"d — ■ "I'm sorry I'm going away. Mrs. Bree had been surprised twice in her life — when you presented her with a purse of sovereigns to-night, and wheni I asked her to marry me (Laughter.) It would be lovingly cherished by Mrs. Bree (tlie purse, I mean), but I cannot speak for the sovereigns. (Laughter.) I thank eveiybodv who has had anything to do with this social, especially the ladies — I'm eroing to have a creampufF directly (Laughter.) I don't think I have much- more to say. I will have the pleasure of shaking the men's hands before I go away, and about the ladies — well I'll kiss them at the door, every one of them " And, Mrs. Bree was there, too'

Australia is going to nut a stop to the pei-nioious practice of allowing people to earn a living by addressing circulars and letters. It undertakes now to allow merchants to post unaddressed circulars, and will deliver one to each householder. Weary postmen' * ♦ • Mr. Seddon was at Nelson Agricultural Show the other day. So was an obfuscated individual, who followed him around, and said "Yah'" or words to that ee.ct. Richard soatched the derelict by saving that it was his sort that had caused prohibition tot bei carried in some parts of New Zealand. The Government has been compared to "a Juggernaut car," winch crushes tihe people. So sa,ys an Eketahuna scribe. Proceeding he adds — "Would that we were possessed of the trumpet of a Gabriel! We would say, in tones of thunder, 'Stop' Look out for the engine !' " Gabriel shouting to Judgment Day souls to look out for the engine is ai distinctly vaudeville idea. I thank I halve found the most absentminded man in Wellington at last. I noticed him coming down Hawkestonestreet on Tuesday, with one foot in the gutter and one on the kerbmg. I asked him how he was. He replied "I thought I was all right, but for the last half -hour I have been limping in the most unaccountable manner." I gently hoisted him on to the path, gave him a push, and — cured him of his limp. * ♦ » The truth of my previous contention that the callow youth usually visits a hotel for purposes of the barmaad rather than to get beer is borne out by the actao>n of a Gisborne publican an,d its result. He abolished barmiandls ainjd is running his hotel witlh male bar-tenders. The sensitive young men of Gisborne have boycotted that "pub." and intend to irrigate elsewhere unital the too revolutionary hotel-keeper comes to his senses. ♦ « * Talking to ai recently-returned male traveller, from London, the other da,v he remarks that the trade in men's corsets in that city is increasing. A beauty doctor told him that her customers were soldiers and actors, and one clerygman and one butcher and that men are very particular about their corsets, and like them in pink and blue silk. She offered to try a pair on my informant, but he fled — to look fox the butcher in the blue silk corset. • # ♦ What has been aptly described as "parochial factionism" is on the increase in New Zealand. We have every kind of society to which small cliques of "townies" belong, and which doi not believe in the> universal brotherhood business at all. Is it not about time we really began to be a people' — one people, that isi — not a chaotic gathering of strangers, split up into petty clubs and lodges each howling over the traditions of some bo^qy soot about the size of a peanut, 16,000 miles away. It is "hard lines," when you are thoroughly enjoying a conflagration, and your neighbour's house is losing its symmeifcry, for some stupid person to put it out, isn't it? At Paihiatua, for instance", the other day. the tired villagers stood around whole weatherboards sdzzled and criticised the firemen but stirred not a hand. A lady brushed the drones oxrb of the way with an umbrella, and shamed them into putting the fire out by pumping water until she could pump no more. ■*■*■■■* We are getting thinnea>skmned as the years roll by. Grown-ups generally relate, with gusto, the fearful thrashings the schoolmaster gave them when they were young, but just you dare to thrash that grown-up's Johnnie ! There is a great objection throughout New Zealand to allow caning in schools, as evidence bv repeated references to cases in the press. Corporal punishment is awful for our boys. Should anybody else require corporal punish-

ment (Boers, for instance), our boys are the one's to inflict it. It is glory, if you spell lti rightly. I notice that the virtues of "Caipilla Hair Tonic" are receiving testimony from the Pollards. Miss Florence Allan, of that troupe, has certified to the benefits she received from it, and her letter, headed by her portrait, is being; freely advertised on the "other side." If "Oapilla" furnished thei rich mass of wavy hair shown in the picture, then indeed it must be real good.