Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 291, 27 January 1906, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt

HEBE is a good character for liquor. A Federal Parliamentarian gives it; — "Alcohol is a liquor which enables Parliament to do at eleven o'clock at night what no sane person would do at eleven, o'clock in the mom Perhaps one Wellington city councillor bas French blood in his veins. Anyhow, the remark he made at the last Council meeting is very adroit. He is a silent soul, and a certain heavily-eyebrowed councillor lent over and accused l him of repeatedly saying nothing. "Nice councillor you are," he said. "You always keep your mouth shutl" Said 1 the other, with much grace : "You are mistaken, Mr. . On the contrary, every time you speak I open my mouth — to yawn." • * • The sun cure is the latest for "nerves," and a lot of millionaires are fixing up a camp in the heart of the African desert, to get as much sun as possible. All millionaires suffer from ''nerves." There was Councillor Keene, for instance — oh, but that is another story. There were riots at British Guiana lately, and the troops put the "Centipedes." down. The "Centipedes" are the local coloured' hooligans. What struck me about E-euter's report was ■ "There were no casualties among the whites." As for the others — well, they are not white, anyhow. Why shouldn't they die? • • • An English friend writes that Mr. G. T. Unwin, the captain of the Cheltenhajaa. team that beat — that is, who were beaten by the "All Blacks," had to nave a tooti pulled while playing. He ran up against an "All Black," and bent an ivory. The team's dentist sped across the ground, and yanked it out before you could wink. Usually footballers, don't require to engage dentists to extract teeth. The other side frequently obliges. • « • I learn, on excellent authority, that, a nurisegirl on the Terrace, has been ignominiously dismissed by her mistress. She thoughtlessly left her mistress's baby with her mistress for nearly an hour, and the baby almost died of starvation. Girls should' be taught at once that the presence of a modern mother to a baby is almost fatal — if not quite. Society demandfe — but there! • # * News, from a reliable source, says that it is common for Wellington cabmen to find valuables in their cabs, and to take them to the police office. Also, I learn that if the object is not claimed within a year or so the cabman is entitled to the same. On this assumption, a cabman who frequently has the honour of driving me is entitled to a cat he found in his eab — when the statutory time has expired the cat had expired some time. • • • Say! Dachter Tarrey and Chawles Alexander, the revivalists, "converted" 35,000 people in three towns the other day. The most satisfying and permanent convert Chawles ever made was the millionaire's daughter whom he married. "I don't have to pray for clothes no mo'!" is how the puts it. • * * Mr. Jawn D. Rockefeller made eight million pounds without knowing it last year, and some queer person has troubled to calculate that the poor, old, hairless dyspeptic will be worth, six hundred and fifty-five millions in 1927. I imagine that if Jawn D. gets offered by auction twenty years hence, there will be few who think he is worth house room. • • • About that new New South Wales Licensing Act, which seems to be stringent. It prohibits youths under seventeen from entering the bar of a hotel, and that's why a carpenter was fined heavily for allowing his two apprentices (fifteen and 1 sixteen years old respectively) to work at their trade in a hotel the other day. Although proof was forthcoming that both were life teetotallers, and had l never tasted drink, and didn't intend to, the master was fined and the publican had his license endorsed. They do go the entire bacon in Australia, don't they?

Pomposity is not entirely absent from the composition or three or four colonials, although the Britisher is supposed to be the only person who knows how to say "Aw" with proper effect. A fearfully swell singer up the line announced 1 that he was about to sing " 'Skies of Blue' — woids — aw — by myself , music — aw — by my tailor 1" « • » The story of a terrible accident. It is said to have happened to a Boitorua guide. The distinguished tourist had known him before, and) on his return asked him what had become of the ro-mantic-lookmg hat he used to wear. "I lost it at the time of the accident 1" he wailed, withi a note of agony in. his thick voice. "What accident?" asked the tourist. "Why, when, you asked me to have a drink, and I didn't hear you!" he said. They repaired' the acoident. • * • Yes, they do these things differently in America, and if the American way is right, Nature is a fool. At a great football match, in which Yale was getting beaten the other day, the school surgeon, hypodemically injected strychnine into the players in the second half to give them "snap and ginger." It may interest you to know that the American is the shortest lived person on earth to-day, and 1 it is because of his artificial "snap and ginger." America is going to die right dlown, and blow clean off its roots pretty soon, if she is so smart, and it is onJy because people who are not artificial are swarming into the country that she keeps steam up. Better to have a five cent, idea in a natural way, than a dollar notion reared on strychnine. Yessir!

A rather curious wire was received by the authorities from a country Government official, who, owing to a bereavement, desired to be relieved of duty : "Wife died to-day — send substitute at once." * • • Acoordmg to Dr. Kress, the health fooder from Sydney, one spot of nicotine will kill a cat. That is why a girl I know has sent a present of tobacco to a gin-1 she knows and doesn't exactly love. * * * I was rather struck by a remark made m a leading article of the week called "The Strenuous Life," and advocating naturalness. "Nature made the chrysanthemum a sweet, modest little flower, au inch or so across. Man, for show purposes, insists that a chrysanthemum, shall look like a doormat." Reminds me of tUae show prize baby, who has been fed on starch, takes the prize at 2 o'clock, and dies before 3. We always try to improve on Nature, and never succeed. * * * Mr. "Tom" Bent, the circular Premier of Victoria, said lately that the Government motor oar didn't scorch whe:n he was in it. I don't car© whether it did or no but Mr. Bent's statement shows that the Victorian Government buys motor cars for its Premiers. What sort of a clatter of tongues would there be in New Zealand if th© estimates contained this item. : "One largesized 27 b.p. Youngmobile, four-seated, double-hooded, back-action, iraspillable. unpunoturable, £2575"? Then, it wouldn't be much good 1 unless the Government put a bridge across the Straight.