LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13086, 27 January 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

'Let mo have audience for a word or two." —Shakespere.

I suppose that everybody is now an expert on ferroconcrete and knows all about working loads-, factors of safely, and transverse strains. ] have been studying the matter in my daily paper with so keen an interest that Mrs. Mercutio on several occasions has had to call my attention to the tact that- the coffee and eggs .and baron were going cold. But what is coffee, or eggs, or even bacon compared with this fa?, mating subject? Xot all the tempting dishes ever placed before Lucullus can rival the attractions of reinforcements in concrete for tie- man whose cultivated palate knows how to appreciate their ineffable delights. The Philistine may scoff at my enthusiasm, but lie is a dweller in the caves of Cimmerian darkness, and is ignorant of the charms and beauties of the Hennebique, the Monier, or the Motichel systems.

I am going to let my readers into a. secret. It is this: I intend to tender for the wharf contract! I think I know enough now about ferro-concrete to warrant me in believing that I could manage the job. It is true I have no personal experience of contracting, but I am told that it is as easy as winking to engage the necessary practical knowledge if yon are only prepared to offer sufficient * inducement. And once that little difficulty is got over the rest is simple. You have only got to go ahead with the work. I am constitutionally a somewhat diffident man. but as regards this enterprise of mine lam choekful of confidence. But even if I distrusted my own knowledge of the work through lack of practical experience, why. bless everybody. I have only to insert an eighteenpenny advertisement in the paper and I shall be inundated with experts anxious to offer me their services. There's lots of money in this contracting business if yon only know, how to go about it—and I think I "do. After I have completed the harbour works I intend to send in a tender to the Admiralty for the construction of a battleship. By way of preliminary preparation I have'ordered from my bookseller Brassey's Naval Annual.

I wonder how many have realised, when looking at and remarking upon the murky sunsets of the past two or three days— when the sun lias either gone down out of sight, or like a red-hot copper ball—that they were looking at the sun through the smoke of Australian hush fires. Two years ago. it will he remembered, the Australian smoke was even more noticeable, and the 'Frisco steamer met it when onlv a day out from the Samoas.

.Mr. Hansen has offered to use an electric sprinkler to allay the dust. Hence the muse: —

In the slope of Symonds-street, v\ here the dusty whirlwinds scatter, In the blazing summer heat, Rapidly decaying matter; Where the giddy microbes are, bprinkle, sprinkle, little car.

\\here the long-dead puppy sleeps, Undisturbed beside his fathers— where the rubbish lies in heaps, And the city refuse gathers, For the dust to carry farSprinkle, sprinkle, little car. fhrough Newmarket's fog of dust. Sprinkle hard without compunction, Or the travelling public must Suffer premature defunction. Through Newmarket wide and far Sprinkle, sprinkle, little car.

Ere the tramways found a cure. We were silent on the question ■ As a thing we must endure Like the rates or indigestion. Now we're more particular; Sprinkle, sprinkle, little car.

It is whispered to me that a pretty girl can always get a seat, no matter* how crowded a car is, as long as she is pretty enough. I saw an instance of this myself when the last Sunday night car for a distant suburb slowed up at the Welles-ley-street corner amid a crowd of waiting people, would-be passengers. The chains were up. The motorman stood guard at the front end and the car waited until the conductor had cleared the rear platform of those who had jumped it while he was working the overhead switch. A score of imploring petitioners for seats had been turned away by the motorman, when up ran one of the prettiest girls to be seen in Auckland.

!■:'. "No room, miss," said the motorman, as she put up her hand to unhook the chain. "Oh! You wouldn't make me walk!" said the beauty. "Very sorry, miss, but it's as much as mv place is worth '"Oh! But surely you'll let me on," and the beauty, too wise to weep, smiled in a, way that would have tempted St. Peter. "I reallv can't, miss. I'd like to, but I can't. It's against orders," stammered the poor motorman. "But you've no orders to push me off, have you?" probk-med Beauty, stooping under the chain and seizing the motorman s hand as she tripped on her skirts. He , pulled her in, and made up for it by bouncing most impetucifelv the foolish people who tried to follow her, imagining that thev had "as good a right" as she. But thev hadn't. A beautiful girl is as privileged a person as the Governor himself.

i But the adventure-? of the car-boarding beautv were not over. She stood toi a moment and then dropped gracefully into the seat an admiring young man vacated. Immediately afterwards an inspector pimped aboard/ "All passengers oft the platform, please!" he commanded, and the admiring young man moved to his fate wiuiout a word. But lie was saved. Beauty turned her guns on the inspector: " lou wouldn't put him off, would you.' He has only this moment given up his seat to me. The inspector had briefly replied that he couldn't help that before he realised the ret. lips and bright eves and white teeth and peachy cheeks, the perfect complexion and curving outlines, and triumphant manner that go to make up a natural-born princess. Then he. lifted his hat. blushed, looked silly. "Well, he must go inside, then," he decreed and jumped off without waiting to see his command obeyed. " I find the tramway people very obliging," remarked the young woman, vaguely, to everybody. Of course she did.

But the tramway people are really obliging, for all that.* The motormen, conductors, and inspectors are worthy successors to our old friends, the 'bus-drivers, and that is saying a great deal.

It is rather queer how fads come and &>■ Latterly there lias been a fad for "pasteurising." Years ago the Pet fad was the feeding of babies on milk supplied from "one cow." Twopence a quart extra used to be charged by some dairymen—this was way back in a past century— for " one-cow-milk," and many a fond mother ascribed the evident health of her baby to that popular prescription. The arguments in favour of one-cow-milk, ,r.s of all other popular fads, from vegetarianism to fiscalism, were simply crushing— you knew a dairyman. I . knew a dairyman'and one of his confidences was the revelation of the scorn with which . .the trade looked upon the "one-cow" fad ' and the case with which they catered to it. -They just filled up the "one-cow" bottles from the ordinary milk supply and took the twopence per quart for their trouble— ,at 'east, my dairyman's lot did. And when they were* a bottle short they picked one • Up by the wayside and tilled it there and ; then. 'And" wot's the odds?" said my dairyman. "There ain't nothink in this .we one-cow nonsense." And certainly the v fad has died out and the babies don't seem , ; any the worse for it. V'f . Mjbrcutio.