BREEZY BITS FROM SYDNEY CITY.

NZ Truth, Issue 88, 23 February 1907, Page 6

BREEZY BITS FROM SYDNEY CITY.

Feminine Fads, Frills, Follies, Feathers, Flowers and Furbelows.

(By "Merrie May.")

Our midsummer holidays are over. The first day of Term eventuated on Monday, and all our Courts opened with a bang and 'the usual preliminary . frills— the judges, juries, and legal gents grafting vigorously as the result ; of a' cessation from duty. Still, if they had returned to their labor's like giants refreshed with wine, the long list before them is calculated to bring on a .severe attack' of that tired feeling.-' Society has returned to the city, and is putting m time at the beauty parlors, getting rid of its freckles, tan and wrinkles, anfl preparing for -the 'Easter festivities, when, the Northcotes will occupy our Government , House, and give some entertainments. The plaguey rat, the nimble flea 1 , arid the loquacious politician are the thfree worries of our existence at this the fag end of summer.- We have music m the morning, music and moonlight and electric light m the evening^ and the days might be lazy, languorous, and lotus-landish were it not for '■ these three ' plaguey things that refuse to cease from troubling and be at rest. Some irascible persons include the musical mosquito and the dilly-dally, editors, who write three-ton leaders on dry-as-dust subjects, of which three lines spells headache and vertigo, as additional summer pests. I- don't. Mosquitoes can be choked with carbolic, and .it ig the nature of editors to philosophise ■and split straps, and be otherwise intellectual and troublesome, when all the 1 rest of the -world is enjoying itself. . . ..',■" The plague rat and the parasitical flea, which made their appearance' on the block a fortnight ago, ■scared frivolous femininity out of its senses. The summer sales were- on, but woman wasn't, taking any bargains. Our tea arid gossip shops also suffered considerably. It's impossible to enjoy a spicy morsel of either cake or scandal . with the spook plague flapping its wings o'er the tea-tray. Now, our city has been thoroughly cleansed,. and the authorities say that /the "infected areas" are the cleanest portions of the Commonwealth, rats, i fleas and microbes of all sorts being banished and annihilated. '■_•■■ ■■■:.* O. ■_ - * .• But the rush for our shows and amusements- abated' not -. one -jot' or tittle.- At Her Majesty's Parsifal still-_wins. Rundry Briine back to the pathi _ of A virtue ; hut next week the Brune-Kirigs'ton Company play "Leah Kleschna," the burglar girl. * * . • " *y . ■'. Tittell Brune is taking her farewell of us. She plays at Melbourne and Brisbane before the termination of contract with the Williamson managfe'ment. She . will, so it is rumor? cd;':.;... star America next; xundej: Klaw and Erlanger's management: Australia's "bwnest" Nellie Stewart, stars under their management iron! March ftext. She left London m Deceiriber fot thjit purpose, having left daughter Nancy at* school m England. .; ■ • ';' '..■>. ' • *.-* • The versatile Bland . Holt is changing his. revolutionary drama "Re? venge",'for . "The Breaking of the Drought." 'l believe Bland Holt is putting . iri whacks of overtime teach? ing hawks, or' some sort of caririori birds, to ' pick the hones of a pro^ peirty horse with ' a " bundle of smelly hides attached. Our adored comedian is nothing if not realistic and thorough' m ■ his ; staging and accessories; He ieaives -Sydney for Melbourne at j Easter. Mrs' Holt 'goes to Fogland m June to see her. .'relatives and witness her sister's -maxriage. .Daisy Cop*pih accompanies her. Bland will remain and .attend; to. business, and get up his muscle, 1 arid' a- Presbyterian facial expression preparatory to maldng a tour of Maoriland. If he should ever wear his, giddy short kilt m that sad dour country, may I. be^ there to sec Scotia's ; grandsons lower their jibs and die a-laughing at his buffoonery. l At the Tivoli we have a, barefooted dancing girl, Rhodt.. Dendron. A barelegged, dancing girl would be more correct. Her legs and feet are greaser painted, her skirts are flulfy to her knees, and her terps.icihore&n efforts are varied from the graceful Castanet Spanish dance, to high .licks "and corkscrews. , Yet the three . Gibson girls are leagues above . her as dancers, while a foreign, male armature, terpsichoring. under the namp '-of-' George Chanti. is the very idenitical poetry of motion * and greased E-ghtnins combined,, and dances better- than- half a hemisphere of dainty ba?.let gfrleens. ' "Wonderland City" is booming tiremendously. Madame FJaro, a lady who wears a cloak of flame, are^l slides along a 500 feet wire, and is extinguished by dumping herself into a miniature lake, is the' attraction this week. I'm told she prevents herself from /being roasted by simply igniting the tail of the cl<s*ak, and. keeping ahead of the flame while doing the ' slide. She needs to be fairly spry. and she loses no time, I notice. Delay would be dangerous; m her case. As a recipe "for getting fid df superfluous adipose tissue, Madame Flaro's flareup cannot be beaten. • »■ • Next week .something unique and side-splitting m the way' of a public hitching-up of two people, till death or divorce do,_ part, is the programme. Mr A. Donohue and Miss Gertrude Derbridge are to be married by Parson Cowling. The bride and bridegroom arc to wear Oriental dress, are to ascend the-. howd**-"h at thc gate, ride around "Wonderland", on the back' of Alice the elephant, arc to be married while mounted o u that immense quadruped. The uarson is to have, a -.lal'lovi.. erected for 'bim. *o U'-i.t- he will br. m a lovfl with the crnh-;\rting pfivt'es. I don't exactly see how they will be able

to kneel on the howdah. If Alice should buck there would be plenty of excitement. The affair winds up with a confetti battle. Can't say I quite approve of this travesty • of . the marriage ceremony, but I suppose it's a good plan to take your physic smiling, if you can. The • hapnv couple get, I believe, a tenner and' all expenses paid for their acquiescence m the public ceremony. * .-' *..•'.'..*■ Very pious men and nearly all women are . apt to look upon a prize fight as a most brutal, bashing,, bloodthirsty affair. So it was with] some qualms of Conscience that I went to see a biograph' of a boxing contest of 20 rounds between Jack O'Brien and Tommy Burns, for a purse of £5000. Seems that the real affair tooic place m America), and resulted m a draw. From a woman's point of view that, fight was disappointing; The' boxing heroes sparred and dariced' round for a hit-, and then became locked m each- ; -other's atmsv Then, instead of punching hard, they, simply hun-meel till a big man. ..Jfm Jeffries— who is the. worlds-champ-ion, and looks big enom»h to fight Gog and Magog, Goliath, and the Ginpsland giant combined— seoar? ' -.d them. In fact, they were clinching and he was separating all the time. . ». * ■ • » A", riian friend explams that it is against the rules of boxing . to punch while clinching, which accounts forthe nopularity of clinching by ' prize fighters. I'm convinced that if women boxed they would abolish that rule, so that the combatants might give each other the father; of a walloping, and be done with it.. Under present conditions, a boxing" bout ap.years to consist of a systematic and scientific dodging of punches, and a lamentable absence of what Fanny S.queers called "goar." I'm satisfied male man isn't quite such a brute as the pairson imagines him to be. Lady Jersey has founded another club m Fogland for the -benefit of Australians. It is the 'fashion now m: the best English society to. take a faint interest m Strange 'creatures travelling -from the Coriimonwealth and New' Zealand, and very occasionally titled ladies wander m ori invitation from, the" Jerseys to gaze upon the Antipodean curiosities.. One of the latter asked a musical student . from Sydney, who happened to' be there, would she kindly tell hsr when an Australian came m, as she was \ so anxious to see IT. She also volunteered the information that they were a curious and utterly "impossible" people, but awfully funuv. Another lady, who was quietly jumped on hv ,a quizzical Australienno. deplrccated the twang of the . Maor i 1 ander s , and was surprised when the latter hinted, that it was the Cockney and low London .accent, ..that, had not been mute obliterated by residence . under the Southern. Cross... * '•'"" ; '' * - * " / t Some grave and Scientific savant has declared that riiosquitoes will not attack anything yellow. He prescribes yellow bed-coverings and hangings, yellow clothing for feminines, and khaki for masculines, and promises immunity from the attacks of the insect. And the whole army of redheaded men and women rise upas orie, and call him "Ass." They asr sert that ginger is near enough to yellow and khaki to prove or disprove his theory,* and they vow that the mosquito prefers them to persons with less brilliant herbage. All the : same,. the lady who dips her. locks into a pot of peroxide, and comes out golden yellow, may plead Mhat she changed the color toiyv of ber thatch to escape the stings of the mosquitoes. But she will be out of fashion. Cedar brown, with red streaks is the correct coiffure tone 'at present.