In The Smoke Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XV, 9 April 1898, Page 456

In The Smoke Room

The ‘Klondike Necktie’ is now being sold in London. It is of a fine bilious yellow hue, relieved with black spots —the sort of spots a man sees perpetually when he has an attack of liver. The latest development of the insurance business is interesting. You can buy braces which entitle your next-of-kin to one hundred pounds if you are killed while wearing them; and there are also hats which entitle your heirs to a similar amount if you are found dead with one. All sorts of special trains have been run over Kansas railroads, but the oddest one yet is reported from Fort Scott. It ran from Parsons to Appleton City, Mo., and consisted of one ear and a locomotive. On one of the seats of the car, under the watchful eye of the brakesman, rested a small bottle, and it was to convey this bottle that the special train was run. A doctor at Appleton City had broken his leg, and lockjaw followed. A certain kind of medicine was needed, which could not be procured nearer than Parsons, 100 miles away, and the special train was called to go in quest of it. The run was made at a faster rate than a mile a minute.—‘Kansas City Journal.’ When shooting over stubble a dog’s feet soon become sore. To avoid this an American sportsman has fitted his dogs with mocassins, with the result that they can work over the very worst ground and never show the slightest tendency to fall lame. The harbour of Trincomalee swarms with gigantic sharks, and strange to relate they are all under British protection. If anyone is found molesting or injuring them, the penalty is a fine of £lO or imprisonment! How this ridiculous custom originated it is hard to say; but we are told that in the early days of British conquest in the East, sailors were apt to desert and seek refuge in the then inaccessible wilds of the interior, and of late years, when civilisation has unbarred the gates of Cingalese commerce to all nations of the world, the soldiers of the regiment stationed at Trincomalee, discontented with their lot in life, were wont to escape from the thraldom of the service by swimming off to American and other foreign vessels, preferring chance under a strange flag to a hard certainty under their own. Thus, the Queen’s sharks are duly protected as a sort of water police for the prevention of desertion both from the army and navy. During a cricket match, suppose that the ball is struck by a batsman and broken into two pieces. One piece is caught by a fielder and he appeals to the umpire as to whether the batsman is not ‘caught out.’ What would be the umpire’s correct decision? This was a problem once raised by Lewis Carroll. It appears from the evidence of the Custom houses that the importation of champagne into America last year amounted to only 219,000 cases. This would represent an average consumption of about 600 cases a day, and would indicate that the whole supply was taken by the aristocratic district of New York. But this, says the ‘New York World,’ could not be without producing a great drought elsewhere. Chicago and San Francisco also drink champagne, or think they do, which is probably the same thing. Denver and Deadwood and Leadville are large consumers. Champagne is an essential feature of racing. It is even drunk in Boston and Philadelphia. While the importation probably does not exceed 200,000 cases, the consumption of champagne in this country cannot be less than 1,000,000 cases per annum, and the question naturally arises, by what miracle are the drinkejrs of champagne supplied and satisfied? Where does the champagne come from that is not imported? And what do the people really drink who think they are drinking champagne at the race tracks or in Leadville, or, perchance, in New York? It is an established fact that in Russia alone more Champagne is consumed than France produces. A similar state of things prevails in Austria. What, then, is it that people are drinking?