LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13453, 1 June 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

"Let me have audience for a -word or two." —Shakeapere.

O.v Empire Day the post office was open as usual, in a,holiday-koeping town, and postmen were running round to offices and shops that were shut up and to houses that would have been empty had the day been fine. And on Monday next the post office will have its holiday, while we are all at work. For red-tape and how-not-to-do-'it-properly a Government office is very hard to beat.

While.the rats arc being crusaded against in Auckland, I would suggest that ships oii"ht not to be allowed to cam- them. A farmer is hauled over the coals if he allows blackbeny to run on his land, and ■why should not a ship be brought under a Noxious Pests Act ? With modern disinfec- : tants it ought to be quite possible to smother every rat in a ship's hold within an hour after the hatches were on; and if it were an international agreement to do so rat- travelling would be nipped short. There, will probably be many objections raised to such a precaution, but I am prepared to prophesy that many of my readers will live to see rats prohibited a* cargo.

So many things happen nowadays that] onco seemed quite impossible. Would we have believed a generation ago that- a man would even be fined for keeping his shop open on a Wednesday afternoon, or for expectorating on the pavement? We certainly should have laughed at the suggestion then, but nobody laughs at any suggested prohibition now". We shall be having women prohibited from wearing trailing skirts on the streets, and lined for not having pockets, before we are many years older.

Talking of women's want of pockets, 1 think, that among those who will go to heaven will be tram conductors. A lady was on the cars yesterday, who carried a fancy kit-bag, two or three books, several parcels, a parasol, and a bunch of flowers.. The car was fairly full, and the conductor didn't get round to her foi the fare until nearly at the. section. She asked him if he would mind holding her flower?, let the parasol fall and waited to pick it up, put the books on the floor, and arranged the parcels on her knees, and was thus able to dive into the kit. There was it purse somewhere in the kit-bag and a train-ticket somewhere in the purse. Everybody looked, and the conductor got red in the face through say- ' ing nothing, but the ladv was as cool as a cucumber till the end. Yes, I think some conductors will be rewarded in the future whatever may be done to them here.

Absence, I read the other day, is one of ' the means for curing love. Business/ 1 is said to be a good cure—was it not. Bacon who said love should never be allowed to ■ interfere with business?and another ex- ' pedient is to reflect upon the unhappiness of 1 ! married life. 1 have, read of so many cures, in fact, that I really don't know which is the best. I only know that I have tried a good many, and am still' looking for a j real cure. There are as many remedies as I there are for curing colds, and they are all , About as successful. Somebody tells us that j ':: absence makes the heart grow fonder, but j Coleridge described love as a local anguish, and when "50 miles away" said he did not feel half so miserable. What one man says another contradicts. "Willing hands make '■'■''• light work" says a proverb; another say.", "Too many cooks spoil the broth." There : you are! You can get proverbs to .say anything, and you can get more to say the re- ■ verse. My own opinion is.that there is no cure for love. Even though we may reflect on the unhappiness of married life till ■\ we are blue in the face; in the end ..we will ■ insist: on getting married and finding out ,-,' onrselves. _ JJove JjaiiJbeen with.Of. since '""the Garden of Eden. :ilv-i brought sorrow then; it brings it now. But it comes up : smiling evpry time, and is as young now as ever it was. Two is company, and three's ?.'•■ a devil of a crowd, and it will always be . so. For myself, I know about as much of ';' : - curing love as Ido of curing bacon.'... '

At the Police Court a day or two ago a man was fined 53 for allowing his chimney to get into such a state that if caught fire. This, was quite right. No man has a. right to own a chimney if he won't take the trouble to keep it clear. I wonder how many beautiful chimneys there are that give no outward and visible sign of the inward and sooty corruption. Chimneys are like men, like books—you cannot" judge them by the clothes nor by the cover. There should be an Act of Parliament to make it compulsory on.the part of every householder to put his head up the chimney at least once every six months to make sure that he can see daylight through it. And, for preference, this should be done on Sundays, for there's nothing more calculated to bring home to a man the enormity of his offence in keeping a dirty chimney "in the house than to have his Sunday clothes besmeared with soot.

A lady golfer, who sometimes fills a leisure moment by stringing rhymes together, sends me the following :— . THE GOLFING ALPHABET. A for your anger when you miss the first ball. . „ JB for the bunker that rises so tall. ■ C for the caddy, a smart boy, you see, D for the driver he hands you with (pes. E for the eagerness sometimes displayed, P for the field, where the golf course. is laid. , , . G: for the polf, which this rhyme is about, H for the hole, where you always put out, . I, the idea, when you make a good swing, J is the judgment that to it you bring. K for the keenness that golfers possess, L for the links, where. they gain their sucM for the mashie for golfers distrest, N for the niblick which most think the best. Ofor the order we find on the green, P for the putt, the best ever seen. Q for the question with which us they bore, B for the rest when the same is all oer. 8 for the swing of the player so tall, T for the tee, where we put oar white nan. V for the utterances, both loud and deep, V for the volleys we out of print keep. W for wet, in which golf wc must play, L . X- stands for the score that we make on that V for your yearnings for some better luck. Z for the zeal, which means ardour and , ,-,■;■;• pluck. ' There are a number of foreign colonies growing up in New Zealand in spite of the ' British prejudices of our people. Our Greek and Sclavonic immigrants have given the Greek Church a footing in both Auck--1 land and Wellington, as the fine figure of ,' the long bearded, tall-hatted' Crock priest > has reminded during the past week the frequenters of Queen-street. In mentioning this to an old Aucklander 1 was asked if I knew that there were in the colony more Austro-Hungarian military reservists than there were British reservists, and on the Coast more German naval reservists than British. I certainly didn't know this but am told it is quite, correct.

"Do you play bridge?" asked the lady *» with the red feather, as the tramcar came iovin Symonds-street. '/Not- very well,' replied her friend with the white coat. "Well enough to piny for money.' queried Red Feather. "Oh, you know, that depends on who s Playing." explained White Coat, frankly. And I thought to myself that after all «men were not the reckless gamblers we We asked to believe them.

A curious coincidence was related to me some days ago bv an American lawyer, who had conic to"Auckland with a client to -whom an inheritance had been left by a - relative at Wainku. They had intended i 'coming by the Ventura, in which case the •;■ lawyer would have lost a birthday, as the ,; vessel would have crossed the 180 th degree ;, of longitude on that day. However, they changed their plans at the last moment, and came by way of Vancouver, when, oddly enough", the steamer crossed that degree of longitude on the client's birthday, *° that it was the client who lost a natal «ay. The devil's own. are always in Uc *' Meiicutio.