Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 289, 13 January 1906, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt

THE p ape is are still very agitated as to whether the "voucher" officials will be reinstated. They won't be. Also, if the offer of reinstatement weire made the trio wouldn't accept it. So you see there isn't any^ need for weeps for these gentlemen. • * • Westralia, the land of sand, sore eyes, and! shilling drinks, is the way an .Australian refers to a piece of his great country. "Maoriland, tihe home of modest maidens, manly men, and magnificent mountains" will do for this colony, according to a Maorilandiei who isn't crying over-rip© sea treasures just at present. • • • Two of the Czar's latest concessions to his faithful troops are soap and towels. Which reminds me that an Englishman, who travelled in Russia some years ago, and' who spoke the language of both common people and nobles perfectly, was arrested as a spy. They knew he couldn't possibly be a Russian, because soap was found in his baggage. Have you ever been on a "live" tramcar? The other night the conductor of the car went round and told! the people not to touch tße trolley standard, "or you'll know all about it." Most of the people didn't want to know all about it, and got off at the next stop. A little crowd of people — mostly tramway officials, stood wathching the car, knowing it was 1 alive. Their intense disappointment whem the car slid into the night without shocking anybody to bits was visible in the light of a street lamp for a quarter of a mile. • ♦ • Gallant royalties! King Alfonso, far instance, who went shooting boars with the Emperor of Germany the other day. Young Alf. shot twentynine — so 'tis said. The boars' were driven past by a mob of dogs, and the great sports fired from, behind steel palisades. Alf. said he had never fired so badly before, and Willie said he had fired beautifully. The steel palisades were to protect their^ goodness graqiousnesses from the "wild attacks of savage boars." There didn't appear to be anything to protect the boars from the wild attacks of savage royalties. The usual supposition is that the ueople of Russia are a vastly ignorant lot, but their photos certainly belie the assertion. Have seen a lot of pictures of "typical peasants" lately, and they all look exceptionally intellectual, with high foreheads, commanding noses, splendid physique, and the usual forest of hair. If these typical Russian peasants were planted on the floor of the New Zealand House of Representatives, you would begin to say complimentary things about the Parliamentary combined intellect. They are not intellectual, of course, but they certainly look it. • * • A lady writes asking if it is coriect to address tradesmen m her letters as "Esq." It is as correct to address your bookmaker this way as 1 it is to address your lawyer or your doctor. If you want to insist on branding your "superiors," or "inferiors," or "equals" as upper servants, call them esquires by all means. It is a relic of the silly old days when my lord owned your forefathers, and your forefathers, if they were well-bred, had the great privilege of putting my lord into his fighting ironmongery. "Mister" hasn't Sot anything to do with the servants' all or the ironmongery, so I have no quarrel with it. • • • Czeray, the magician, has lots of luok in getting the earth's greatest men to assist him on the stage. The fact that Major Hume, commanding the New Zealand Royal Artillery, and Mr. Fisher, M.H.R., commanding the New Liberal Party, were assistants lately is gratifying. Maybe, Mr. Fisher's wanderings into the realms of magic are not altogether unselfish. Czerny. on the other hand, may be learning things from "Dahn." .The way in which the latter magician flourishes a voucher before the people one minute, and makes it disappeai the next, and for ever, has never been equalled by any professional vaudeville artist.

Prodigious pronouncement by London "Spectator," which is the religion of a good many New Zealand conservative newspapers: "Whenever Governments interfere with trade, trade Buffers. 1 " Look at the New Zealand dairy industry , for instance. « • * Conversation between magistrate and witness in recent assault case. "The prisoner ie a noted fighter, is he not?" "'lm a fighter? Blime, no! Wy on'y last week me. and ten other blokes put him to sleep'" Yes, it happened in Australia, the land of the "push." The "Poet" asserts, in a recent very clippy number, that, owing to "breeches" of the Electoral Act, the supporters of Wi Pere's candidature for the Eastern Maori seat will try to upset the election. It is not often a pair of pants are responsible for election trouble. * ♦ » There is a gorgeous billet for a girl, advertised by a Horn© Education Board. Ladjr Bs.A. kindly note. A "young lady" is required' to pa-rade in front of a very large Yorkshire school dhiring play-time and before and after lessons, in order to see that the kiddies don't get run over by motor-cars! The Board offers a "salary" of Is 1 a week! • • • The presence of a policeman, dressed in very rough clothes, and simulating drunkenness, in the vicinity of a Lambton Quay betting shop, a few dlays since, leads me to suppose that policemen imagine betting men are fools. What the whole world can see is visible to a "bookie.' Probably, this paiticular policeman was selected! for this duty because he looked so much like a constable. • • • Though they had l never met b-4, What cause had 1 she 2 care ? She loved him lOderly because He was a 1.000,01)0 aire. A difficult thing happened to a sweet girl in a central street on Wednesday. She was crossing the road, and her high-heeled 1 boot-^such a smart boot! — caught in a drain cover, and held her fast. Four young men dashed across, and hauled' at her, but the boot held. "We'd better unlace the boot, Miss!" said a bold man. She said- "No! No!" but ultimately it had to come off. The reason of her "No! No!" was painfully apparent. A dlainty bare # toe peeped from a very undarned stocking. She "darned" it — mentally — ma the spot. * ♦ ♦ I had the felicity of walking down a long road towards the oncoming Rev. Mr. Smiler the other day. He was wearing that large advertising expression of his. He was" ready to "do unto others," etc., on the slightest pretext. Mr. Smiler passed 1 a woman — a working woman, carrying a kit with a scrubbing-brush sticking out of it. Mr. Smiler touched his hat, and waved his hand in a sort of "one for you and two for me "_ style. Then, hie saw a lady coming — a real lady with beautiful clothes on. Mr. Smiler prepared to receive her while yet a great way oft. He bowed proudly, and swept the air with his hat. As for his smile, it was absolutely angelic. No mere hat-touching for the lady — keep it for the washerwoman. . Let me see, whom do they follow? A carpenter, I've heard.