Afternoon tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume VII, Issue 338, 22 December 1906, Page 10

Afternoon tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

THRILLING item: "Mr. T. E. Taylor went to Hamilton far a quiet spell." Roosevelt's system, or merely Esperanto? One Melbourne paper oaLls Dr. Wallds "the Bishop of New Zealand. Who is the Bishop of Victoria i » * • After all, our New Zealand institutions are pretty feeble. The House of Commons^wune-celler is 200 feet long. It is, of course, one of Britain's glor- *•• In a recent judgment summons case down South : "And' who are you working for now?" "The same crowd, your Worship, a wife and 1 fire youngsters." # Quaint thing that a main should raise- another man's hat to fat man and his wife, and yet a local outfitter assures me that one of has customers ■was wearing a hat that w. fact and. in law belongs to tihe outfitter until it is paid. for. # # In a recent Sydney journal a very fine fat portrait of Mr. George Reid finds pride of place. The paper says he is the strongest personal force m Commonwealth politics, amdi then staples the paper right through George Reidfc mouth I • • • The Mayor of New Plymouth alleges there are oompJainits that "cattle leave the abattoirs no* properly killed." If your steak should get up and bark at you, you will know it is an improperly dead steak from a deceased New Plymoutfh animal. • • • The Lance's rude remarks on the "pastime" of pigeon- si aiuigbter are mild in comparison with this in a recent number of the "Bulletin" : "Pigeon-fiihooting produces the curious upright hog that is neither wholly man, nor quite pork." It is, of oourse, the head end 1 that is pork. One Yankee church, to inorease< at--tendance, has. turned' on a whole corps of beautiful erirl ushens to lead people to their seats, etc. The atitendianoe has increased' fourfoldl-^mostly young men. I tender this bit of news for tihle earnest consideration of Wellington cileries who preach to empty chains. • * » I am in the fortunate positloaa. as I write of being able to tee the D.I.C. windows. Many married! couples pass. I notice that the man invariably quickens his pace and appears to see something several miles ahead. The woman always looks imploringly and appears to say: "Jack, isn't that a duck ?" But Jaok is disappearing round the earner witih his hands in either pocket gripping his wges hard. Cannot Mr. North get shop-windows done away with, as being demoralising to the community P • • • I notice tihat a local doctor, who has been given a little 'son, has perpetuated the extraordinary delusion conveyed in the birth notice : "Home papers please copy." Of course, the doctor paid! hria 2s 6d like- a man for the ad., and there never yet was a Home paper that copied a 2s 6d worth of oolonM ad. gratis. Colonial bdrths are of intense interest to Home papers that receive the fee for inserting the notice. Otherwise, Home papers do not oare who is born or who dfies or who gete married. They've got lots of murders and police court casts to fill up with. • • * Men don't bother about such trifles as fashion, do they? I notice that tailors advertise the "new concave shouldler" for men. What'© to prevent them also inventing a novel hexagonal leg, or » circular chest, or a quadrilateral waist? When will men wear clothes that don't make them appear to be chopped out of wood, with a couple of prop-sticks for support? Mien folk sneer at the wasp waist in woman, the peek-a-boo blouse, and tihe pocket - leas skirt, but the man with a 34-inoh chest and a 42-inch coat seems to beHere he is a paragon of all the physical perfections. "Concave" shoulders! TTgh!

"Fathers with marriageable daughters," says a society writer, "should keep an eye on the chauffeur. lne trouble apparently is that the daughters cannot keep their eyes off him. * * * During a Hungarian lottery mania in England — a million and a-half went to the "sharks"— clergymen, publicly prayed in church for the success ot ticket-holders. Mr. North would scorn to do a thing like that. « * • It is a matter of some congratulation among members of a Wellington church tout their new pastor us veffy fat. Fat men are so short-winded. By tine time a fat parson has climbed up to his pulpit he isn't feeling too seimony. Said Dick, "This sea breeze has one fault, , It makes moustaches taste of salt. Said pretty Lil, who near him sat, "Yes, doesn't it? I noticed! tbat!" * * * JVLss Josephine Liddle, a Queensland girl, is t)he prevailing lady ewimmwng champion of the earth. Quarter mile in Bnun 11 l-sth sec. Thus beats the vaudeville lady swimmers by a few seconds. I suppose she is bound to try to swim nhe English Channel now. • • • This is the most obarmina; advertisement of the week: — "Wanted, a tboioughly respectable parson to do light housework." Menedy a simple question of an "c," but really quite a number of parsons would be better engaged washing dishes than fcrving to wash souls.