WHEN I GROW OLD.
Observer, Rōrahi XXIX, Putanga 47, 7 Hereturikōkā 1909, Page 9
Mō tēnei niupepa
WHEN I GROW OLD.
(For the Observer,) When I grow old — when in, life's evenshine I sit within my porch, will still your hand Be held in mine as now, sweet Gwendoline ? Will still you think me king of all your land, With heart of gold ? Ah, sweetheart, Time is cruel ; this - world makes test Of every man ; sin's path is all too clear. Man is but human at his very beßt. Ah, that you'll whisper near : " I love you, dear," When I grow old. — E. L. Eyre. Tui-street, Devonport.
Sarcasm in an advertisement may prove a double-edged weapon, and costly to its user. Of this a Taranaki settler has just had a curious experience. Missing a pair of ploughchains from his farm, aod coming to the conclusion that some evil minded person had purloined them, he banged three shillings upon an advertisement in the nearest newspaper, inviting that person to call and get the plough as well. Of course, that invitation was meant to harrow up tbe soul of the purloiner, and induce him, while in a conscience-Btricken state, to restore the missing property. Apparently, it had the opposite effect. The permission to take away the balance of the gear was accepted literally, for a night or two after the advertisement was published, the plough and all its appurtenances disappeared bodily. Now that sarcastic settler is eyeing with suspicion every man in his neighbourhood who has a reputation for practical joking, and is bothered with qualms as to whether, when the abstractor discloses himself, he can with good conscience affect to treat the matter seriously. a # ■ Better to have the soil occupied at once than locked up during the indefinite duration of academic debates about the proper way of letting it go into use. The time has come for insisting that the settlement of the land must take precedence of everything — even of the right of unlimited Parliamentary talk. — Inveroargill "News." • v • The glorification of Mr Hogg is a physiological conundrum that is beyond our ability to fathom. With an apparent knowledge of the effect of his fallacies on the country, crowds gather together to cheer and applaud him ! Is the whole thing an expression of the contrariness that is the warp and woof of many of our existences? — Oamaru " Times." • • . m The author of " Humbugs and Homilies " (Dr Findlay) is one of those very estimable and well - meaning gentlemen — there are plenty of them about — who think the time is out of joint, and that they, like Hamlet, were born to set it right. — New Plymouth " Herald." c a • There is not much danger of the right-to-work doctrine securing the recognition the Socialist desires, although the efforts to assert it are having a baneful effect, because the unemployed are thus encouraged to join in the agitation for relief works instead of trying to shift for themselves — Christchurch " News."
