Gossip From Sydney.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 789, 13 August 1915, Page 18

Gossip From Sydney.

DeAS CHBISTABEIi, —

NEW Zealanders have been so generous patriotic funds that they will be the first to recognise the ' magnificent record New South Wales put up on July 30th.

The results of the rally for Australia Day have not yet come in from the Outback, and the daily papers still pubhsu columns of contributions. It is not too optimistic to say that the ■ Mother state of the Commonwealth will show a total of £450,000 • when all the cash is m hand. - s * * * Victorians are the same people as ourselves, and. as keen to give to war funds - But their total for Australia Day—about £180,000—is certainly disappointing. The Western District or Victoria has many wealthy pastoralists, who could have handed out £10,000 apiece as easily as you or I could guinea. Again, some industrious. statistician has compiled the totals of private contributions to war funds' during the past vear. Here, New South Wales has 3, big lead with £1,476,891. Our fnstei Victoria follows with £767,619. This is better in proportion than, the sum sne put'" up on Australia Day. •* * * ,* •The reason is obvious. For years this State has been steadily improving its machinery for organising charity collections. The Sydney Saturday Hospital Committee is comprised of leading business men in a city which- is, in trade, the commercial capital of Australia. They placed! all 1 their experience and resources, i.e., organising machinery, at the service of the New South Wales Australia Day executive. For years, also, we have had, as the moving spirit of all our charity collections, the man whosie genius for getting contributions out of even the Scrooges of the community leaves one gasping witjh. admiration. To the fertile imagination, and tireless energy of Hugh Ward 1 , we owed Belgian Day and :ts £146,000. . ' Note the different quality in the machinery which Melbourne brought to bear on its Rose Day collection for Belgium. The total was under five thousand 1 pounds. ■ This paltry result amply proves that the keen business organisation, in New South Wales has yet to be created in the southern State. Though Mr. Ward was on the high seas on July 30th, his powerful Belgian Day initiative —warranted to extort cash out_ of Hard Cases' and double-distilled Misers—remained. * # * •» We are not, I hope, going to be too cock-a-hoop over the brilliant results of Australia Day in this State. We only did our duty. But we can be proud of an almost perfect collecting organisation, which sends out feelers into the most remote sheep runs and way-back settlements. * * * «• Sydney was wondterful in its uplifted spirit of gaiety and reckless generosity on Australia Day. Early in the morning—as early as 4 and 5 a.m. —society women were fastening on their big aprons to get into business as produce dealers at street stalls. »•* # * Martin-place, our great central thoroughfare, was the most amazinj? openair market the local housemother has ever seen south of the line. # * * # Miss Brennan, a well-known florist, who has a large • circle of influential friends, had bought out the habitual •flower sellers for the day. All their stalls, and goodness knows how many new ones, were piled with a magnificent supply of fruit, vegetables, poultry, eggs," butter—we think of Butter with respect in these days of imported American . grease—etc., etc. The richest women in Sydney had contributed of their best for every produce stall here, and elsewhere. Then —more power to them s—they got up long before the winter morning burst into dawn. And from! the preliminary effort of arranging their wares, till 10 p.m. that night, they stood on duty and sold —sold—sold!

It was odd to see Miss Eadith Walker —our wealthiest spinster—absorbed in the, of selling produce, with some pretty' society girls, the Misses Knox, and "others, dancing attendance on customers in white frocks and heliotrope streamers. Lady Cooper was "Missus" in a fancy goods store, whiich did a very brisk "business. Mrs. Tom Watson, a good sport, and an peace time an enthusiast at golf and polo matches, was Lady Cooper's right-hand in this alluring shop. Across the street they had a tearoom with, a bevy of fashionable damsel's as waitresses.

The procession was purposely shorn ot everything comic or in the nature of an extravaganza. It was chiefly made up of army and navy samples. In the middle were some of our convalescent soldiers, back from Qallipoli. Sir Gerald Strickland had offered them his two big landaus, so they sat in state behind the vice-regal livery. Their ovation was so practical as to be rather painful. The crowd showered money on them for the Red Cross boxes they held. A hail of coin occasionally struck them on the face or head. One sufferer had his forehead so badlv cut with a penny that he looked as if he had come unbandaged from the Front.

Violet Day, as I told you, will be the next excuse for public bushranging. The money goes for extra comforts for the Soldiers' Club. A suggestion to turn a narrow thoroughfare in the city, only used for pedestrian' traffic, into an Egyptian bazaar, is trembling in the balance. Perhaps some municipal bylaw will 1 knock it into a very small cocked hat. Dr. Mary Booth, a buttress of the club, and Miss Grace Burrows, with her forces of the Girls' Realm Guild, are the Lady Pirates-in-Chief.

An Auckland man, Captain Dineen, of the New Zealand military, has a commission ill the Royal Flying corps, England.

From little Timaru quite a number of men went to the Front months ago. Amongst them is Lieutenant Gerald Bailey, who is on the war path with the Ist Leinster Regiment. A brother, Lancelot, is training with regiments in camp in Hampshire. * * # # • Mr. C. St. Hill, lormerly of Hawera, in the great New Zealand dairy district, has a commission in the O.T.C. This sounds rather like a hot drink with lemon in it. But I believe it really means Oxford Territorial Corps. # * * ■» • Mr. Justice Hich, whose gallant young son was recently killed in action., has had his mind taken off his bereavement by Ms duties at Liverpool Camp. He is mot only recognised as an able lawyer, but he is, what the legal tribesman often is. not —a foe to red tape, and a keenly practical business man. He put his finger on the place—a place that needed it —in the Liverpool Camp inquiry. With a promptness surprising to the circumlocution of the average' commissioner, he got' to the root of "the trouble in record time. Now His Honour is doing the same good work at Victoria training camps. -* * * * The exigencies q£ war time have brought the spinning wheel into some local demand. Many years ago, when the present principal of the Women's (College, Miss Louisa Macdonald, M.A., came out from Scotland, she brought a Scottish spinning wheel. Her idea was supposed to have been based on a lack of knowledge, of Australian conditions. To teach : the Australian "peasant" how to spin, by the domestic -fireside, the wool which is so great an asset here, may have been a factor in the good lady's benevolent scheme. But things here are not what they seem in far away Scottish villages. So the spinning wheel had become a drawing-coom ornament or curio at the Women's College.

Now, the shortage in knitting yarn points to a small revival in the old hand loom. During a trip abroad some years ago, a young Sydney matron, Mrs. Maxwell Allan (then Miss Amy Smith) bought a spinning-wheel in. Norway. This has lately been loaned to a Sydney firm, who purpose to make copies of >t for local use.

No more curious; feature of the effect of war on modern life can be quoted. 4 fter many years it seems likely that Miss Macdonald's old dream of Australian women spinning wool off the backs of their own . baa- lambs may materialise. Sister Susie must knit socks.

Concerning socks, a new idea has been gently born into a weary old world. A Sydney girl, Miss Leahy, proposes that a gift pair shall he knitted for Sir lan Hamilton by the women of the Harbour City. It cost 3d to knit one row in this unusual present. The funds go to the Australia Day treasury. In New South Wales, blue and black, the words, "Australia" and "July 1915," are worked into either side. The recipient will be_ let down gently by a letter of explanation. After all, he need not promise to wear them an action. "We don't want to frighten the Turk by unfair means such as "passionate" socks 1 — as the almost defunct "knuts" used) to call them. Yours discursively, Roxa.