Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 277, 21 October 1905, Page 12

Entre Nous

A WELLINGTON girl, who has been fortunate — or unfortunateenough to get into very exalted society m London, writes to say that she got something of a shock at the first titled person's house she visited. The amusements of the evening consisted chiefly of wrestling bouts between lady and lady and! gentleman and gentleman. She asserts, with much solemnity, that the young Duchess of , who used to be on. the vaudeville stage, was thrown six times by the young Countess of , whose father was a hog king of Chicago. Bets amounting; in all to thousands were made. The competitors did, not change their costumes for these wrestling bouts, and did not even remove their ornaments, there beimg a scramble on two occasions to obtain possession of pieces of valuable necklaces. • • * The Wellington girl also asserts that in many of London's best houses it is now no uncommon sight to see fights to a finish with eight-ounce gloves between members of the aristocracy or engaged professionals. People who are too vapid and blase to care for blood play bridge for big money. It seems the "arts" are quite unfashionable, and that, as in days of old, only the humbler folk go in for learning. Many society people systematically mis-spell to demonstrate this new smartness — amd the lunatic asylums are very full. * ♦ • We have our weardnesses in New Zealand, but you have to travel Home for real creeps. "Phosphorus Jack" is a benediction in comparison to the flying pig that is hovering over Wales just now. Says a Home paper : "The strange apparition which, resembling a huge pig with webbed! feet, floated 1 majestically over the Vale of Llangollen the other day. When seen it was flying at a great height, was proceeding at about twenty miles an hour, and was raven black:." Go onl » • Again the mournful parson, who "has heard," or "believes," or "is led to understand." " A Rev. Mr. Miller, of the South, wailed thusly the other day • — "He did not know much about local dances, and did not think his remarkapplied) to them, but ... in many places the ballroom had sunk to a low level, and some of the ballrooms of London and Dunedin had been the ruim of thousands of young people." The things which have been "the ruin of thousands of young people" are now so many, and the young people of Dunedm so comparatively few, that it seems to be matter for fair speculation whether any un-"ruined" still remain. There seem to be very few subjects left now for the mournful ones to get worried 1 about. Oh, dear brethring and sistering, isn't it awful ?

Dear Lance, — As a regular subscribe* to your paper, I enjoy veiy much the little pars you have in about things that happen in the country. But, some of the people who read the Lance about here generally say, on reading these things, that they all come out or the editor's head. However, if you care to print the follomng, whiah is quite true, I think it will convince them that you do occasionally hear things that happen away from Wellington . • • • The "boss" of the'men. in the bush at a certain sawmill in the province of Marlborough was supposed to be engaged to a girl living near, and had often spoken of it himself. He .seems, however, to have grown tired of her, and was secretly meeting another girl who lived near the sawmill. The first girl got wind of this, andl one afternoom recently walked up to the log-hiawleo 1 , where all the men were, and, picking up a spreader which was lying near, she saaled into the "boss" (about 6ft., and weighing 14st, while shie is about 7sft), calling him a coward l and a our. • • ♦ After giving him a £ew cubs, site fainted', and the "boss" was the iinst to rush up and. nurse her round. When the little woman came too, she picked up the spreader, and went for her recreant lover again. Thereupon, he girded up his loins, and fled for the bush, and has since threatened that the first man who mentions the incident will be sacked on the spot. As he has been "boss" for about two years, and has only sacked one man in that time, and cried when he did that, his threat is not taken too seriously in the Rai Valley. — Yours, etc., Woodpeckeb.