Entre Nows.

Free Lance, Volume VIII, Issue 400, 29 February 1908, Page 12

Entre Nows.

SIR JOSEPH WARD and the sen-sibly-disposod crow d in this country are considering the lia.ndiest way of getting rid of the yellow blot at present blemishing the Do million. And meanwhile the papers in the Wairarapa are enthusing over the fact that at the Masterton Show last week a Chinaman, Mr. Kong Fong by name, was an exhibitor. He competed in the section, for the products his biethren specialise in with such success — vegetables. He carried off many awards but he did not have- it all his own way. In, the school section a juvenile Celestial competed, but unrsucoessfully, in a class for a collection of potatoes. The Masterton Show people will probably receive the order of the China Orange, or the Yellow Mandarin, or some such distinction, for encouraging Chinese industry in New Zealand. They have well merited it, at any rate As for their evidence of purity and pride of race, they deserve a leather medal. It's a pity that Mr. Ho<ng Kong, or Kong Fong, couldn't be sent back to China with his prize-money. The incomprehensible feature of the business to us is that New Zealanders would agree to compete with tha yellow evil. • • • An applicant for the erection of a street lamp in New Plymouth, says the Taranaki "News " waxed eloquent, thus: — " . . . I trust the Council will grant my request, not only for myself, tut more especially far lovers and others wtho do congregate on the terrace at the time when the stars, those everlasting blossoms of heavens, begin to shed their silvery light through the ethereal sky." Seems to us that poetry and penmanship flow much better than oil up the Taranaki route. This genius struck a pretty rich bore, at any rate. A man who can drag the bull .fireworks canopy of Heaven down into his argument for a street lamp up a New Plymouth avenue would make tloriously poetical copy out of a dog ght. The Taranaki "News" is safe for its next editor. t • • "Yes, sir, you can depend on ha vine; heavy rain within eighteen, hours. I had the rheumatics in my shoulder this morning. That meant that the rain was twenty-four hours away. Now it is in my knee. That is seventeen and a-half hours!" This was the prediction of a lady visitor who was staying at one of our Wellington hotels. The manager was impressed. The prophetess walked with the aid of crutches, and had been a life-long sufferer from rheumatics. She had spent years and a fortune, and, like the woman in holy writ, "had suffered many +-hin,gs of many physicians." • • » England and the Continent, America and Australia had in turn been, visited, and in all of these oountriies, she assured the hotel manager, her weather foremasts had never failed. So the manager called the porter, Ned, and told him to see that the upstairs windows, skylights, roof-garden dooirs,

etc., were all locked punctually at twenty minutes to six that evening. (It was Thursday.) Alas, how many reputations have been blasted by our Wellington sun and dry atmosph&ie' The Karon prophet has passed away like the gourd that withered at noonday, and left his biother piophet angiy. Captain Edwin — (a voice "Who's Captain Edwin p ") — has gone, the way of aM prophetic flesh. And now even our noble army of lheumatic veterans are made peiverters of the truth. Probahly it was at a tune of diought in Palestine when David said hastily: "All men are hais!" A correspondent in the Wanganui "Heiald." after a geneial ciiticiism of the mayoral policy, concludes with the tollo'ving — "I do hope the Mayor will get down off that iope befoie the hol-low-ground, razor-edged knife of ridicule seveis it beneath his feet, and the political horizon fades for ever from his sight." That man is w astung his time in Wanganui. Wonder what he is doing, anyhow Hayraking, or j=un pi v cultivating the fasting craze p A man, with a gift for writing like that is wanted in our oenties We're not even sure but that the London "Times" isn't wanting him just now. It us parsing through a crisis But it will be interesting to see how the Mayor of Wanganui will pull out of the struggle. With Webb and Tresi elder both m his town, he surely can't afford to do any tight-iope walking and now that this genius has appeared His Worshipful Mayor had better sit tight. Wangamui is bound to be famous yet Theie isn't anything veiy humoious about hie, and the sufferings of settlers in the backblocks are severe enough to make politicians give up taking bribes and live honest lives Still, hi the matter of local fire-quenching there a,re smiles to be had. For instance a grass fire broke out at the back of Mrs Z's place the other day. Mrs. Z. was not a bushman, and she didn't get a bag or a bough and beat it out. She was a high-leveller and had no water All the wet in the house was in the tea-pot, and she gallantly dashed to the flames with the pot and scattered it over half-an-acre of fiie. But for the nearbvness of a navvy with a long-handled shovel, the fire would have licked up a five-ioom-ed house, rent 255, bring your last rent-book. • « ♦ People frequently empty rubbish into wooden boxes. Sometimes they empty hot ashes. One woman did. A fat hawker, who saw such an incipient conflagration could find no means of extinguishment, so he sat on the top o the box with good effect. He was rewarded with a dozen empty beer bottles. The Lance knows of a case i,n which a kerosene lamp upset in a workshop — fortunately a brick one, with a concrete floor. There was no liquid available, and the apprentice who was nearby threw the only liquid haindv- — a bottle of turpentine — over the fire. It was a woman, in this case who saw the situation, and "doused" the fire with a wet tablecloth. • • • Even cricketers have their grievances One of them not a hundred mile-s from Wellington, who can bowl but is seldom given the ball, and can bat but is sent in late was the other day bluntly asked by a tactless acquaintance "Then why the dickens are you in the team anyhow P" Withtak'ng offence, the cricketer answered, with the appearance, of sudden confidential candour, "I don't know, old man • it must be for mv singing "

It ls with sonowful heart we iea r l that a clergyman has been guilty ot taking a flax-bush that was growing on public land, and regret that a mayor who wept at the frightful misdemeanour has not brought the culprit to justice. It appears to us that the clergyman desired to start a flax-mill on the cheap. He knew, of course, that it was a matter of 'a few hundred pounds to build a mill, and he also knew that the flax bush he carried away would keep the scutchers scutching for years If a small boy had pulled up a flax bush, no on© would wink an. eye or weep a tear, but the act of "vandalism" on the part of a minister is frightful. (Sobs.) • • • School Cfmmittees are funnier than a prize buL playing Diabolo whil© suspended from a spider's web by his tail. They are usually full of bile, bias, and ©very other thing beginning with "b" but brains. A School Committee of five or six bush lawyers is a fearful circumstance. Here's a story of a School Committee which grows wool on, its artificial teeth. It didn't like a school-teacher. The schoolteacher was a good teacher. It made things very uncomfortable for him. It gave him a magnificent testimonial to help him to get a billet. This failed. The Committee cried its eyes out, and asked the Board to shift the teacher. The teacher sent the Board the Committee's own, magnificent tribute to his genius and virtues. He is still the teacher in the old spot. • • • Good enough! Church. Paison didn't turn up. Uncomfortable feeling about the place. Nobody there who could eject a sermon from his surcharged buzzum at a moment's notice. Still no parson. Uprose a farmer. "I move we move," he said, "to the other church!" Although the two churches were rivals, the parsonless congregation drifted into the opposition citadel, much to the surprise of the officiating sermoniser. In the meantime the other parson arrived, and found nobody to preach to. He went outside, and bought a boarding- ho use. (True tale, except the boarding-house incident.) • • * The atmosphere of Melbourne is thick with gossamei just now, says the "Bulletin." If you haven't five yaTd=, of veal sti earning back from your tophampei.othei gorgeous saitonal elements avail nothing. The veils are voluminous, and usually silky and clinging Take a bunch of nmon, chiffon, ot crepe-de-chine, and throw it at a brick. It gups like an octopus Thiee yards of chiffon in twin tails and an unshaven chirL aie the elements of a common tragodv on the Block. • • • We witnessed one in front of Allan's The skirt-length with the floating tentacles was bounding east ; the lank man with the unshaven chin was butting west. The chiffon floated across, and gripped his bristles. Then came the shock. The accumulated force of her easterly impetus and his westerly rush nearly tore her head off. As it was, the hat came away, and the hair came down, and a dismantled lady was led tottering into a convenient hat sho to recuperate. The man received a bad wrench to his neck. If you don't shave regularly, beware of of floating chiffon.

Henare Maroro, 01 words to. that effect, is a Maori living at Walhi, who has taught the Prime Minister his duty Henare became a loud, lucid, loquacious deputation the other day, demanding that a road should be made ftom Bullville to Cowtown. The Prime Minister suggested that a sum of money might be put upon the Estimates next year for the work, but Henare, mounting a 'heap of dust, demanded the money right away. "Where te surplus?" he asked the Premier, and held his hand out for some hundreds of pound's of it. • • . This suggests that the Premier should either travel around with theTreasury on wheels, or should have a Government cheque-book. He might give stray Maoris an order on the next loan. Still, the Maori's query is pertinent enough, "Where is the surplus P" Nobody has ever seen a taipo, a bunyip, or the New Zealand susrplus. All three animals are equally "wrapt m myst'ry." • • » It is stated in Christchurch that at least three of the volunteer firemen tv ho rendered such sterling service at the big fire have lost their positions in consequence of their absence from their customary avocations. This kindly appreciation of valour ought to earn a straight-out boycott for the miserablespirited employers. • • • Times have changed since the days of Captain McKellar Wix, who once led his gallant volunteer company over the gory sandhills of Miramar, and stabbed the unoffending rushes with his trusty blade. Last Saturday KiTbirnie throbbed with excitement, foir gorgeous staff-officers in, red-banded caps pranced around on foot, and the combined forces of Wellington repelled the nefarious attempts of the St. Pat's boys to take Fort Gordon. Every grocer's shop was picquetted, lines of communir cation were guarded, but tnere was never a soldier set to. watch the neighbouring hotels. • • Everything was complete, even to the field telegraph and the baggage waggons. Nobody knew, of course, wihether St. Pat's boys had killed all the defenders, or taken the forts, or whether the defenders had left Father Keogh any scholars to teach, because no shots were fired. It seems to the Lance that, although no shots were fired, on account of the dryness of the country -and the risk of fire, that the volunteer field-day business is being managed more intelligently than usual, and that the chief soldier-men have grasped the idea at last that a volunteer is a potential defender, and not an animated variety show. • • • Noticed that the men took cover, that they moved forward in very open order, and that some non-coms, who aforetime used to set the pernicious example of standing on a nice high hill, where the size of their inflated chests might be fully admirel, got out of the way on Saturday. There were signallers, tents, cooking utensils, ambulance waggons, plenty of bearers and hospital men. and if the men didn't look like a crack regiment of Guards, their arms were in good order, and haversacks and water-bottles carried for use and not ornament. During the short interval that is going to elapse before the disbandment of vol-

unteers and the institution of cuanpulsory service for everybody, it is obvious that New Zealand volunteers are being hammered into shape so that they may fo.rm the neeessaiy_ basis for a real citizen, army, to which evexy man will' bo proud to belong • • • Poor old Carlyie "Mostly fools " probably he had seen some of the new season's ladies' hats If our spiritualistic friends will kindly ring up Caiiyle and get him to add another chapter to "SaitoT Resartus " our best thanks w ill be theirs As a blotterout of Nature, a foreground for scenery, -and a gigantic confusion, of disorganised matter, the present hat deserves a niche in Westminstei Abbey or the Mount Cook Gaol Mtiseoim These hats and their mission simply upset the oalcuktuo ns of a man. He. cannot read the destination board on the trams for them, he doesn't know why any woman should wear a blue a pm,k, a green, a brown, and a mauve bow each as large as an irrigated cabbage, on the same hat, and he doesn't grasp the true inwardness or need of a mass of variegated fowl'-vard that would make a stag-officer with all his "pretties" on feel pale with envy The matainoTphosis from a quiet serving-maid to the altitude and affluence of a leader of fashion is one of those amazing problems that refuse to solve themselves. A new hat every week, the last more fearsome than the dear deceased, is the height of ambition, m some ladies. To sail continually up and down a crowded street during the busiest time of the da\, diessed as for a barouche with a gorgeous flunkey or two and prancing horses, may seem ridiculous, but it is distinctly WeJhaigtonian, We haven't the carnages and the flunkies, but we have the millinery and the hats. • • • A solemn, dragoon-like carriage, arms bare, but for bangles shoulders drawn well back, ten pounds' worth of blue, white, and othei fowl-yard on the top, a face as grim and impassive as Yon Moltke's, an unbend able demeanour — these are the things that tell. These are, in fact, the things we all .admire. Let us have 'em by all means. And the mass of vegetable fibre which the wearer of half-am-acre of hat fondly imagines the public mistakes fo.r hair, and which is necessary to support the amazing monument of millinery — words fail one! "• • • All the papers up and down the countryside just now are telling the wonderful story of the Johnsonville man who, when out with a gun a day or two ago, shot an animal which is, perhaps, unique. It was, if appearances to be trusted, a cross between a rabbit and a ferret. It had the head, ears hindquarters, and tail of a rabbit, and the small forelegs and comparatively long, thin neck of a ferret. The sportsman, not realising that such a "freak" had a money value, threw it to his dogs, who quickly made an end of it. It certainly is a pity that the man from Johnsonville threw the beastie to his dogs, because it was just a million. to one chance that the dogs would make an end of it, and, of course, the million won.. We understand that Mr. Hamilton would have been glad ot

that ferrety rabbit for the Mount Cook Barracks. Anyhow, the whole story is tame by oompansoai with the story told by our office boy last Monday morning. We have never known this particular boy to stray into the path of falsehood, so we can hardly doubt him in this instance. * • • It appears that last Saturday he and his mates went out labbiting up Long Gully or Happy Valley way, and towards nightfall the dog (said dog is dead now) turned into camp diaggimg a rabbit that had a pair of small horns and split hoofs. This dog, like the Johnsonville teirier, made an end of the freak also. The only explanation ot the phenomenon is that there axe a lot of goats up in, the Long Gully district. The reward of virtue' A Christohurch lad found a parcel (that had been lost and advertised for- at a considerable distance from the city a few days ago, and at much personal inconvenience restored it to its owner, who signified his gratitude by overwhelming the youngster with gifts, winch consisted of one apple and one pear ! So far, we understand, the boy's health has not been impaired. We were afraid the fruit might have been green.