Echoes of the Week.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 714, 12 November 1903, Page 14

Echoes of the Week.

(By

“Ithuriel.”)

There are some good stories of Thackeray in “ Blackwood’s Magazine.” We are told that he “ created quite erroneous impressions of himself by often indulging in irony in the presence of people who were incapable of understanding.” One curious instance was this. Thackeray had been dining at the Garrick, and was talking in the smoking-room afler dinner with various club acquaintances. One of them happened to have left his cigar-case at home. Thackeray, though disliking the man, who was a notorious tuft-hunter, good-naturedly offered him one of his cigars. The man accepted the cigar, but not finding it to his liking, had the bad taste to say to Thackeray, “ I say, Thackeray, you won’t mind my saying I don’t think much of this cigar.” Thackeray, no doubt irritated at the man’s ungraciousness, and bearing in mind his tuft-hunt-ing predilections, quietly responded. “ You ought to, my good fellow, for it was given me by a lord.” Instead, however, of detecting the irony, the dolt immediately attributed the remark to snobbishness on Thackeray’s part, and to the end of his days went about declaring that “ Thackeray had boasted that he had been given a cigar by a lord !”

At the close of an address at Wanganui on “Prohibition in Clutha,” the Rev. J. C. Jamieson, who is a native of Clutha, quoted an instance of what happened during the French Revolution, when a band of youths paraded the streets with a banner on which was written the words, “ Tyrants, tremble i for we shall grow up.” Mr Jamieson thought this might be taken as a lesson by those who laughed and jeered at the efforts of the young people in the Prohibition cause, and warned those who did so that the words on the banner he had mentioned would apply with equal force to the liquor traffic. The illustration, in view of the excesses of the Terror and its de plorable results, is certainly unfortunate. But the parson’s strong point is very rarely history.

Talking of tl.e domestic help problem that is arousing so much attention' in the colony just now, reminds me that Mark 'Twain settled the great servant problem some years ago, so far as concerned his own domestics. When the famous humorist was building his house, he quite astonished the architect by insisting that the kitchen should be placed on the ground floor, on a level with the entrance door, and with windows —good, large windows! —overlooking it. “ But —a kitchen facing the hall door ? I never heard of such a thing !” protested the surprised architect. “ No,” I daresay not,” observed Mark Twain ; “ you see, it is my own original idea/’ “ But what is the idea ?”

“ Oh, that’s very simple. I want the cook and other servants in the kitchen to be able to see everybody who calls. Directly the bell rings, they’ll look out of the window, without leaving the work, and see who it is>; - and what they are wearing. The work will get done, the dinner won’t be spoiled, time will be saved, and the maids will be happy and stay on with us. Under the old plan the poor souls were always running up and down the kitchen stairs to allay their curiosity. That wasted time and spoiled everything.”

And the humourist’s famous home at Hartford was actually built with the kitchen on the ground floor overlooking the entrance.

A ludicrous anecdote is told by MrCharles Morton, the veteran? music-hall manager, whose memoirs of London amusements extend back about 70 years. Speaking of songs which had been greatly popularised from time to time by music-hall vocalists, he said there was one that the band of the Grenadier Guards included in its programme. Queen Victoria heard it one day, and. sent out word to the band that it should be repeated. She also asked its name, and was much amused when the lady-in-waiting very hesitatingly told her it was “Come Where the Booze is Cheaper.” “I don’t know what ‘booze’ means,” said the Queen, “though I can make a guess ; but, at all events the tune is pretty enough.”

The misery of the rich has received an additional illustration. Owing, it appears, to some mysterious disease John D. Rockefeller, reckoned at the top of the world’s millionaire tree, has lost all his hair during the last two vears. He is now just as when he came nto tjhe world, only a little more so. Then a false report went round that a cob.ssal fortune awaited the person v.hc'd make anything in the way.of wool appear on the surface of his system. And now every hair-producing crank from the Lakes to Florida is going for him. One artist has a specific strong enough to put down-upon an anvil in» week. If Mr R. would but try it he could be landed in Equatorial Africa before Christmas, and start in the gorilla line. In the meantime the great oil man trembles at every double knock on the hall door. He knows the postman is outside with a hand-cart. To have half a billion dollars and no hair is a trying experience. Still they are many would nut up with it.

In a causerie on “People who Travel” in “Hearth and Home” occurs the following .—“ Americans are the most amusing companions on a journey,” said the major ; “their stock of yarns is inexhaustible. Or.e told me on the way to Fri-ghton some, time ago that there was a black woman who Wanted to give her three or four picaninnies a treat at the theatre, but had only enough money for one ti<let. It was in the old days when crinolines were fashionable, and a bright thought struck her. She practised the children walking up and down the room under the crinoline so as to keep in step, and then off she went to the theatre, paid at the gallery door, and climbed urstairs. The check-taker hapuening to Ice’- up saw four pairs of feet ascending under the crinoline, and fell back Jin a heap, exclaiming, “Snakes, if it ain’t a centipede woman !”

The Federal capital was the subject of discussion in a smoking carriage on the Onehunga train on Saturday night, amongst some ex-Australians. “Wot the deuce they picked on Tumut for beats me,” said one,. The little man with the big pipe was, as usual, equal to the occasion. “I’ve been worrying it out,” he said, “and I reckon some o’ them chaps in Parliament thinks it might come in ’andy if they was tanked up to ’ave their ’ome at a place that it don’t matter whether they spell it frontways or backwards when they are addressin’ letters to their missuses !”