Melbourne Town Talk. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT).

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 346, 27 February 1889, Page 3

Melbourne Town Talk. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT).

Now that we hear so much about women's rights, and the fair sex are so rapidly encroaching upon what has hitherto been regarded as man'sdomain, there is oneexercise which lean honestly lecommcnd to their attention. Undoubtedly the best athletic sport for women afforded in winter time is to tence, and it is one within the limits of the average girl's puise, acourseof instruction, a mask, a few toils, a fair-sized room, and an adversary being all that is required foi hours of merriment that brings roses to the cheeks, straightness to the shoulders, a graceful poise to the head, and strength and lissomeness to all the mu&cles. Fencing ' properly done trains the mind and instinct in quickness of thought and perception, the eye and body in quickness of sight and movement. There are a great many women who fence systematically, notably actresses and others who value perfect health as a means of making a livelihood, and there are now in various cities a number of fencers' clubs as well as schools, where the graceful accomplishment is taught to perfection by French experts, whose reputations are international. Two graceful girls in pretty co&tumos — light tunics, short skirts, loo?e knee breeches, long stockings and rubber-solid shoes, exhausting every art of carte, tierce, thrust, and parry to hit each other, with eyes flashing, breasts heaving, and every limb in giaceful and rapid play, and with foils clashing and twinkling with lightninglike rapidity, is indeed a charming sight and an inspiring one. A peculiar incident happened the other night at one of the Melbourne Coffee Palaces. Not long since a certain gentleman was ruthlessly thrown over by a woman to whom he was engaged, but, as many men have done before him, ho fell in love with somebody else and married her. Strangely enough, his first false love was married on exactly the same day to one of his greatest friends. Upon letiring to rest he placed his boots outside the door, and as he was in the act of doing so, the bedioom door opposite slowly opened, and a well-known figure clad in an elaborate suit of. pyjamas imitated his example. Recognising in the individual opposite his old fiiend, he exclaimed — 1 Hallow, what are you doing here ?' ' Why, don't you know? 1 was married to-day — honeymoon, and all that kind of thing.' * Dear me, how odd ! I was married to-day, too.' 'Whom did you marry?' 'Why, don't you know, Miss .' 'Really, well, now, I am married to Miss . (!ood night, old chap !' Novelty is the great want nowadays in most every walk of life, and to those who are meditating a method of raising subscriptions to charitable objects, or to pay off church debt?, I think I can recommend something out of the common. There is no atti action in the .stereotyped bazaar, cake fairs, and the like since the great charm of iiovelty has passed from them. But I think a Rainbow Reception would prove a\eiy acceptable substitute. It sounds well, and there i* about it a pleasing 1 alliteration, which would be attractive in piint. Rainbow Receptions are the latest form of social novelties in New -York. At a recent fair of this chai actor theie weie eight tables in rainbow colours, presided over, as usual, by charming young ladies. The violet table was devoted to sweets, the light blue to fancy articles, the red to Oriental wares, the yellow to lemonade and cake, the orange and white to fancy ai tides again, over which presided ladies diessed in. Greek costumes. The booth which was dressed in grey and indigo was constructed in the torm of a mosscovered cottage. The final colour (green) was repiesented by a floral booth, arranged n<? a gaiden, with rustic fences, gates and benches Over the booth where refreshments weie sold all hues of the rainbow w< re mingled. The general eflect was chaiming I am only a poor scribe myself, and ac customed to writing a good deol each day. For this reason I heartily sympathise with the lady, peisonally unknown to me, who is said to have transcribed 7,000 woids in a day, but who would not do it again if she could help it. This does not look at the first blush a superhuman etfort, but nevertheless it mutt have involved consideiable strain of wrist and mind. Let anyone sit down and count seven thousand, and he will soon find out what it means. But to write seven thousand words from our shorthand notes must be infinitely worse. A certain clergyman, however, does not appear to think much of the job, and says that he does the like of it frequently, though it has never occurred to him as remarkable. According to his statement he has often on a single day written entirely two sermons of 3,000 words each ; preached both with the accessories of pleaching; conducted a funeial, going o mile to the cemetery ; presided at a committee meeting lasting more than an hour. Alter that, at 8.30 p.m., he ate a heaity supper, went to bed and s-icpt well — like Amos Bai ton "snoring the <-nore of the just.' How is that tor high ? is all 1 can exclaim — because it would be in the worst possible taste to question for a moment the veracity of a paison It is true the pai son hails fiom the land of stars and stripes, but is there any ica&on on that account for placing the discount upon hit- assertions, that it is geneially con^ideied expedient in respect to news fiom Ameiica ''