WEEKLY WHISPERS.

If there's a hole %n a' your coats, t rede ye, tent t' it. A chiefs amang ye takin' notes, And, faith, hell prent it. — Burns. What's become of the Nelson Cyclists' Union ? Its second annual meeting was due last month, bat there are no signs of it being called or prepared for, and subscribers are beginning to " want tc know, you know/' \lt would be a pity tc let such a useful organisation die of the usual Nelson complaint — apathy. Verb sap. suff. • # * "K.A.," Picton, very courteously writes to •' Moff." -kinder sarcastical, inethinks — asking permission to use for quotation purposes a recent paragraph in this column recording a protest by a Nelsor railway guard against a boy holding or to the ferns in the Motupiko tunnel as ii stopped the train. " K.A." is at peifed liberty to do %vith the paragraph thai which " Mo£f." had already acknowledged he bad"done with it, viz, " adapted "it from another and similar " yarn " of American origin. " Moff." is too old a bird to "give things away," and when he plagiarises he does it so openly as to redeem the sin by full confession. # # » Loss of population has been a serious drawback to the West Coasfc of recent years. The region has now discovered that it is also losing a large proportion of iLs valuable Necrojolitan vote, which is a very great factor in "right colour" elections. Hence the alarm and indignation felt at Greymouth in regard to the proposed disinterment of about; 140 deceased Chinese citizens for removal to the b'lowery Land are readily understood. The proposal of the surviving compatriots of the dear departed was to resurrect and scrape off the much less recent fragments adhering to the canonised bones, and ship the latter to China in assorted parcels. The Greymouth Council Refused permission to disinter ; but the Colonial Secretary, without consulting the local authorities, had already granted the Chinese, such permission. He had also permitted the (Jreyinouth scraped bones to be stored in Greymouth with bones from other parts of the West Coast consigned to Greymouth for parcel delivery in China, and this in a building adjoining a public street and close to a number of residences, # * # Now all this has caused ructions in Greymouth. The people living in the houses adjacent to the temporary Golgotha of the Chinese have felt creepy and imagined pig-tailed and slantingeyed ghosts flitting across their vision. As a result, more Occidentale, several highly respected citizens have been practising homwopathy, vsz., taking in spirits to keep spirits out. There is also a legend in the near neighbourhood of the warehouse (Webber's old brewery) that at the unchancy hour of midnight there have been heard a rattling and chattering, as if the assorted bones got together and " walked." As a matter of course, the * Greymouth Council " got on its hind legs," and brought pressure to bear on the Government, and eventually an official wire waa received to the effect that steps will be taken to remedy the matter ; and it is understood that a special sarcophagus, from the madding crowd, will have to be erected. * # # Of course the two local papers at Greymouth take sides in the matter. The " Star "is very horrified and gruesome, and demands instant abolition of the ghastly trade, while the " " poohpoohs " funk " and describes the scraping of Chinese bonea as a nice pleasant sort of domestic occupation undertaken. by the various colonies of Chinese as a sort of corn-husking bee, at which they sit around and chat and smoke and have a good time generally with the dear departed. * # # The " Argus " thus described the process :— " The graves are opened, the bones taken out of the mould that clings around them. They are then washed clean, counted, and tied up in white parcels, each leg and arm in parcels by themselves, and all placed in a big bundle, with the name of deceased and the destination to enable it to be deliveiS ied to deceased's relations. When the j Chinese are engaged in disinterring they smoke and chat as comfortably as if they I were peeling potatoes. There is no smell I or anything about the process calculated !to create disgust." Whereupon the j " Star " retorted that it could no_t go one ■ better, not being an expert in the science of resurrectionists. Which is almost as good as the sarcastic ro joinder of quiet Mr Brown of Calaveras in Bret Harbe's wellknown poem. However, the upshot of it is that Webber's brewery is not to be haunted by the scraped anatomies of the ' pig-tailed dead, as a separate and remote building is to be erected for the purpose But i he large and flourishing bones ex- 1 port industry carried on in Greymouth as a distributing centre is not to be materially interfered with. That is to say, tt}e town is to suffer a serious loss of electoral population by the removal of the remains of about 140 Chinese citizens, now domiciled in the local cemetery. # # # Ihe Government |is being bombarded by protests from warehousemen, bank and merchants' clerks, and others against the ' Shops and. Offices Bill. A local clerk, in rightequs indignation, f< barracked " the Premier by wire, and sarcastically sugfestedthat instead of a compulsory halfqljday an Saturday the whole " day off " ahonld be made compulsory, inasmuch as the half-holiday was already a universal custom in warehouses. The Premier was evidently nettled at this telegram for he wired, back a retort that that sort ■