Entre Nous.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 867, 16 February 1917, Page 11

Entre Nous.

IT is not safe to mention stoats or ". chickens to a certain Wellingtoman just at present. The reason is. --apparent from the. following. The said " Wellingtonian has a'back-yard poultryrun, upon which a stoat the other" day made a raid, carrying off three of the "best chicks. Boggs fancied 'those -chicks. He consulted a friendly neighbour, who consolingly lent him a trap. - Boggs set the trap, and sure enough ■ the next morning it contained the marauder, held fast by one leg, but • still alive and kicking with the other three. He sought the axe and summonsed his better-half to lend him a hand. !But Iris wife, like most females, had a special abhorrence of stoats, rats, mice, spiders, and other, such like "creepy, ■crawly things." So unaided, - with the axe in one hand and the other hand -clutching the trap, Boggs smote at the .stoat with all his might. He,missed! But the blow caused the trap to fly -open, and the stoat with a bound disappeared from- sight, only stopping when at a distance — so report hath it —to boldly put its fingers, or rather its '"'■ foot, to its nose.. ; • • . .-■'»' »•-.•» »'■■ : A society note in a New York paper, referring to the opening night of the Metropolitan Grand _ Opera House, - states: "Mrs. George Gould, of course, was radiant—all silver cloth, diamond shoulder straps and gorgeous ropes of •diamonds." It is very interesting to read this and similar American "sas- - siety" tit-bits at such a time when- • -the land, of the . Almighty Dollar, as ' represented by its too-proud-to-hgnt President, is so greatly concerned over the rights of the smaller nations. * * .# "* - "Wo often poke fun at, Paddy on account of his brogue, but speaking at a -meeting in connection with the Poetry Society in London, Sir James ForbesRobertson, ' the actor-knight, advised readers and reciters to listen to an Irishman pronouncing such "words as '": "when,'.' "which," and "where." He : said there was also much to learn from the cannie Scot in his pronunciation of the c 'r." Sir James added that we had something' to learn from the . -French, Italian, and the Spaniard, all -of whom spoke their languages better than Britons do. He must have been listening to" the English language as •spoken by a mixed collection gathered together in London of Cockneys, An--zacs, Canadians, South Africans, Irish, Scotch,' and a various assortment of "users of English dialects thrown in. ■n a « a New Zealanders in France have nicknamed their Australian cousins fighting , -alongside- them "Aussies," which, obviously, is a corruption or .abbreviation - of the word Australian. One of our boys writes, out that the New Zealand-'-ers, like the Australians, are full of "gingev" and of the devil-may-care -order. He says that .they--the New IZealanders aiKr Australians—get on well together. He gives an amusing m--stance of the blunthess and spirit of a certain Australian, who went up_ to an English officer and, .without lifting his hand in salute, said: "Officially I've "had nothing to eat to-day, but unoffici--ally I've had a damned good feed. What are you going to do with me now?" Interpreted, the ; Australian meant that the military authorities through some

oversight hadn't fed hini that day, but instead of starving he had seen, to his own welfare, either by. stealth or by some other means not strictly according to red-tape regulations. » * * * The world's first wireless dance was held in New York last New Year's Eve. The dancers tripoed the light fantastic to musie that was played on a phonograph situated forty miles away. The sound was transmitted to the ballroom per wireless, and was passed through

sound amplifiers or megaphones, which enabled the music to be heard all over the house. Experiments in the.same direction prove that sound can similarly be multiplied 600 to 1000 times. So elated is Uncle Sam over the success of these experiments that he is already talking of wireless telephones over long distances and the transmission of grand opera music by the same means from one theatre to another.

We often speak of "hard-headed Scotchmen," but it seems that this flint-like quality in the upper storey is

not peculiar to Mactavish. A Glasgow medico has been carrying out an extensive investigation on some" 700 skulls he has dug up from a disused Clydeside cemetery. His research revealed the fact that these skulls are in all essentials identical with the English type of skull as defined by examination of a cemetery in the East End of London twelve years ago by Dr. W. E,. Macdonell. The Scottish investigation was carried out by Dr. Young, of the" Anatomical Department of Glasgow University, who

states that "Scottish skulls presented an exceedingly close - resemblance in their general form to the series of skulls described by Macdonell and known as the Whitcchapel English crania, which the latter regards as the typical skull of the Londoner of 200 years ago." Commenting upon the discovery, the "British Medical Journal" says: — "The more we dig into the physical characters of the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish peoples the more do anthropologists become convinced that all four nationalities are compounded out of exactly the same racial stocks of mankind." » * # j In New York the other day the police arrested a pretty young damsel on a" charge of shop-lifting. The police raided her rooms and removed the stolen goods, which were valued at £4000, In a three-ton motor-lorry. Accused said she was interested in moving pictures. She was interested in. the moving line all right, dealing on a wholesale scale. „She is supposed to have "lifted" £100 worth of goods from Wanamaker's store —a well-known New York emporium—in one day. How's that for a record "lift?" * * * ■ * Stated that Mrs. Parker, the halfsister of Kitchener, would be thankful for any of the supposed-to-be-authentic news of her brother —which, others are rumoured to receive, but which she does not. In the course of the last few weeks three different people in England are supposed to have had postcards sent through neutral countries from some island in the Baltic where Kitchener is rumoured to "be a German prisoner, and only biding his time. The cards don't come from the great man himself, hut his companions. Why they should not be sent to his relations is a problem. K * * * ' " Miss Alice Cherry. . of New York, claims to be the heaviest woman in the

world. Asi slie tips the . beam stone, it is not likely, that New Zealand has anyone to offer to dispute her rclaim. Alice is no, small cherry to transport. Recently ; she' was a, -passenger by a' 'steamer York, for Los Angeles,- where she was to be a champion exhibit in a, circus or show. , The gangway had to be specially strengthened on her account;and two cabins were knocked into one to accommodate her. In addition short girders were built beneath her berth so that;

the bunk would not give way and let the plump- passenger down when the good ship surged suddenly on the heavfng billows. Another passenger by the . same steamer .was Hayti Hassid, who is thirty inches tall and weighs just thirty pounds. It wouldn't do for him to be under Miss Cherry's bunk, and she were" in it, if it did happen to collapse under the strain. .« * «■'■.».' •A certain, intrepid young British airman has the following short rhyme pasted on the front of his airship : "Here with a Maxim gun well o'er the bow, A decent bomb, a dart or two, and thou, 0 Kaiser, looking up at me, Would wish for Gott or Paradise rust now!" * » •. a • The killjoys in the Old Country must be extra active and obtrusive just now. At all events, an Anzac. who was wounded a"nd has been recuperating in England, is very annoyed with them. So much so, that:he has been giving vent to his ' feelings .per the press. Writing to a Manchester paper of some prominence he states: ' 'The faddists and cranks of all sorts are having the time of their lives behind poor Tommy's back. They had never the pluck to say much or to do much before the war. Even a well-known., military man is allowed by yo\ir Government to write articles for the papers on how to keep us soldiers moral when he ought to be thinking things out to shorten the war. • Your bishops urge us to repent—of what? A smug-faced young clergyman visited me when I was in hospital and gave me a bunch of tracts and told me to repent. I nearly hit him in the jaw. The p_asty-faced skunk had never seen anything more terrible in his life than a mother's meeting, and he had'_ the cheek to tell me—a man who Bad lived in a rain of shot and shell and blood for two years—to- rep_ent."