Chatty Gossip from the EMPIRE CITY

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 751, 20 May 1893, Page 4

Chatty Gossip from the EMPIRE CITY

The Gaiety Company are now closing their season here, after playing for a fortnight to an unbroken run of crowded houses. You will be surprised to learn that one of our aristocratic residents on the Terrace gave his services to the Company, and played a very important part in ' Carmen up to Data.' Need I add that it was that highly respectable member of the community — Mr Fitzgerald's donkey. He had to draw Michaelo's donkey cart across the stage in the first act, and he very ably and modestly withal played his part. His stage labours, however, were so arduous, that he waß unable to keep up his nocturnal concerts. As a consequence he has not been singing any of his melodious lullabies of late to cheer the sleepless invalid, or to woo to refreshing slumber the fretful babe.

Frank Edger made his public debut at this week's • Thursday Pop ' by playing a nocturne on his 'cello. He is hand and glove with all the musical people down here.

Walter Freeman Kitchen, alias Temple Vane or Vane Temple, now in custody at Dunedin for wife desertion, with a more Berious charge hanging over his head, is a gentleman well-known here and in the South. He it waß who ran the Dunedin Globe during the height of the disastrous shipping strike, and added considerably to the bitterness of the struggle by his fiery writings. The pressmen who attend the sessions of Parliament will recollect him best as the man who appeared for about nine days amongst their genial company two years ago,, and made more trouble by his cantankerous ways than the Gallery had known in a series of years.

Walter Freeman— who, by the way, was also the producer of that still-born literary venture 'Zealandia'— played himself out in Dunedin, and had earned such a reputation in the journalistic world that no other town in New Zealand would hold him. Then he hied him to Melbourne, big with importance, to start a Labour organ there, but that scheme also proved a failure, and he took to the road as a theatrical agent.

Hiß wife, formerly a Wellington girl, and two children, were left a burden upon her father, a respected business man in one of the up-country towns of this provincial district. It does not seem that Walter Freeman has troubled much about their welfare since he has crossed the ocean, but a brilliant notion seems to have struck him as a way to get rid of them altogether. He would be dead to all his former associations.

Thus it happened that about six weeks ago letters came to his relatives in Wellington announcing Freeman's departure from this vale of tears. They were supposed to come from the lady in whose house the man's dissolution had occurred, and gave 'most distressing particulars,' as Gilbert puts it, in the ' Mikado,' of his death and burial. Anyhow, Walter Freeman, if not exactly mourned as dead, was looked upon as ' a goner.' But soon doubts began to creep in. The landlady's letter, on closer examination, was found not to hear analysis. 0

Then some anonymous cable messages came from Melbourne and Hobart, suggesting that W. F. was not quite so dead as he made out. Enquiries were set on foot, with the result tbat cable news was received that Walter Freeman had, in his desire to begin a new life, ventured upon a new partner. In other words, he had, so 'tis said, gone through the form of marriage with ff young Taßmanian woman, and started with her on a honeymoon tour in New Zealand, combining, however, business with pleasure by acting as advance agent for a concert company. * *

Now it chanced that the happy bridegroom returned to Dunedin, the scene of his former exploits, apparently confident

that certain little alterations of his facial appearance would enable him to defy detection. His boldness seems little short of madness, seeing that he most have been known to quite one-third of the people of that oity. It happened that he was quite easily bowled out. Soon after he presented himself at the Otago Daily Times office, he was accosted as Kitchen by Mr Hutchison, one of the reporters. Of course, he indignantly denied tbat he was ' any sich pußson,' and accounted for his resemblance to Kitchen by claiming to be a cousin of his. But Hutchison was not so easily put off. Telegraphing to the Kitchen family in Wellington, he ascertained that they had no relatives named Temple Vane, and on his imposture being thus unmasked the culprit owned "up.

Meanwhile the relatives of his cast- ofi wife in Wellington had set the law in motion and got a warrant issued against him for wife-desertion, for which he is now in custody. If the statements about his re-marriage are correct, of course, and of this there is only the evidence of cable messages as yet, he will also be prosecuted for bigamy. It would be hard to say which of the two injured women is entitled to the greater share of sympathy —the deserted wife and mother, now in Wellington, or the innocent but deceived creature who is said to have gone through the mockery of a marriage in Tasmania to find herself now in that most awkward of positions, neither maid, wife nor widow.

Charlie Burgess and his wife have been spending a brief holiday in Wellington. Charles is established in business on his own account in New Plymouth, and is full of hope and confident of success.

So the shareholders of the Times Company have had their annual meeting, and by a large majority have removed Mr E. G. Jelliooe from the directorate. Mr Loughnan and the Hon. John McKenzie (Minister of Lands) both gave it to him straight from the shoulder. As the. burly Minister rose to speak, he walked up the room towards Jelliooe peeling ofi his overcoat as he went. The action looked bo suggestive of the fortiter in re that there waß a general burst of laughter. Mr McKenzie was very emphatic. He said if he were asked to take stock in any Wellington company he would first of all enquire if Mr Jelliooe was concerned in it, and if the answer was in the affirmative he would take precious good care to have nothing to do with it.

The Rev. Hot Coffey (Anglican) and the Rev. W. Gillies (Presbyterian) are still going it strong. Weeks ago I described their ' Mill on the Floss ' otherwise in the Press. The editor was long-suffering, but at lengtn came a day when he had to notify the termination of the wordy strife. But the bellicose parsons had Btill lots of fighting in them. Ever Bince they have been desperately pummelling each other with letters inserted as advertisements. The Press is making money out of thiß fight to a finish, and the public are not edified. In his last the Rev. Hot Coffey made a terrific onslaught. He goes for William, of Timaru's, alleged ' blunders,' and says that ' the exponent of the great Presbyterian schism (a nasty knock that) cannot quote correctly (oh !), cannot quote relevant authorities, cannot frankly withdraw mistakes (sic) but takes refuge in bluster when worsted in argument.' Well, ' our excellent friend Bombardos' (I mean Coffey) ought certainly to be an authority on cluster. He says that the Rev. William's ability in the scolding line proveb him to be a worthy disciple of historical Jenny Geddes. Now, here the Rev. Hot Coffey is most egregiously at fault, Jenny was too practical an iconoclast to scold. She used a far more forcible argument than her tongue — in other words, her footstool. It is a good thing for the Anglican parson she is not now in the flesh, or his own head might be iv danger, and he would assuredly be . taught the expedience of bridling both pen and tongue. The Rev. Dick evidently realises tbat his pen has exceeded the license of gooa taste, for he hastens to add, 'It certainly is fortunate for my head that Timaru is not within a stool's throw of Wellington.' Then he puts on steam again, and goes straight for William's ocular. ' The man who is ignorant ' of oertain alleged facts ' becomes convicted of a limited range of study.' Poor Gillies).

William, of Timaru, although driven hard upon the ropes, was by no means knocked out of time. He promptly came up to scratch *hen time was called. H6 got right in with hiß fist upon Dick's open countenance. 'The "assumption of such

airs of superiority, and the misrepresenting and abusing of an opponent will not pass muster with an intelligent public for anything but what they really are, evidences of weakness in the man and in his argument.' The next blow fetched blood. 'I would remind Mr Coffey that the -man who admits, even reluctantly, that he has made a slip or a mistake in any particular statement, or ignorance of any particular faot, is a more honourable man, and more to be trusted as -a teacher end a thinker than he who pretends to know everything, and to be infallible, and who will not admit a mistake, however glaring, but will persist in self-conceited or brazen-faced adherence thereto. The mistakes and misstatements of Mr Coffey have been glaring, but he has not had the honour or honesty to admit them.'

We are awaiting the next round with some degree of. excitement, for William's Scotch blood is now properly up, as the following statement will sufficiently prove. * I was afraid this discussion was to end in an unsatisfactory manner, but it is a distinct gain to have brought to the light the real position which Mr Coffey takes up, and I shall have to deal with him in another form— not as a defender of his Church government, but aB a misrepresenter of her spirit, her doctrine, and her laws. Meanwhile, ' let brotherly love continue." '