RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 136, 8 June 1907, Page 12

RANDOM SHOTS

SAMm!

gome write a neighbour, name to lash: cash ~~ Tilia thcm Sht — for needful Some write to please the country clash, And raise a din. lor mc an aim I never fash— I write for fun. Talking a*>out oaths and the legal iformalities la be observed in taking them: here is -an ilkis thation of •the difficulty of carrying them kilo effect, In an English Court —quite recently, according to a late '•Daily Telegraph."'— a lady came forward to be sworn. The usher held the Testament toward hef, administered the oath, and then bowing toward her, in lus most impressive manner, he uttered 'the mystic monosyllable "Kiss!" "Sir!" said the lady, drawing herself up indignantly. "Kiss!" repeated the usher, "with, even moro marked emphasis. '-Sir!!'' from the lady again, while his Honor smiled, and a policeman coughed behind his glove and boxed a small boy's ears for laughing. ''Kiss!*"" repeated ■the usher wearily and this time the lady got really desperate. "I am not" she said with a bewildeied look at the Beach, "I am not in the habit—but— ■but—and hero her voice was drowned in the joy of the general public, while liis Honor buried his face in his notes and a reporter was carried out in violent hysterics. But the usher stood unmoved. He only said, in a tone of infinite patience, ""Will you kindly kiss the hook, please, and tell the Court what you know I" Then the. lady began to understand, and the reporter wiio had "ibeen restored to consciousness at the nearest bar was assisted back just in .time to chronicle the fact that she was still blushing balf-an-hour later when she retired from the witness-bos. 4r_W"__--i"_"i-_ It is a favourite superstition amoDg Ci the old folks at Home" that colonials know nothing about the Old Country. I am not prepared to argue that just now, but the converse of the proposition —that the inhabitants -of the United Kingdom know anything worth knowing about vs —is a far more hopeless fallacy. I am rather fond of collecting evidence on this point, and my last witness is Mr. E. Baker, the Australian amateur boxing champion. The puglistie "Snowy" ■did not ha.ye a very good time at Home, be'-ause he got some sort of fever and, Tike Mr. Gilbert's tenor, "couldn't do Jiimseif justice."' But he considerably enlarged his experience as to the intellectual condition of ling-hmd in reference to the colonies. Tne nurse who had to take charge of him in the. fever ward of the hospital tip-toed timidly into the room, trembling and pale, and promptly rushed out to tell heir colleagues "'there's no Australian there — only a yonng c_p. M She subsequently told Baker that she expected to see a black __. A lady who saw him

•it the hospital asked him if he had learned to speak such good English coming over on the boat. Another of the nurses asked him if he knew her cousin who lives in Wellington, New Zealand; and Baker found on investigation that plie thought "New Zealand was a town in New South Wales, and that Wellington was one of its suburbs. Even the doctor who attended Bakesr hazarded ibis remark—"What a pity you have no rivers out there, as we have in England;" and when BakeT humbly asked why. the medico pointed out that they would be so useful for bush fires and droughts. I make no comments. But what a lurid light these little things cast upon the value of British public opinion on matters colonial! 4..-* __.■"___••_• I understand, from remarks recently made by the Minister for Labour and j other prominent publio men, that there is something the matter with our ""ha-sis of taxation." It appears to want broadening or widening or lengthening; and, as there seems to be some doubt as J to the exact scope of the desired exten- | sion. I hereby suggest that the Treasury should take into aejeount a recent American experiment, and impose a tax on hoards. It appears that the State of New Jersey, where the trusts register ■themselves, is running short of cash, and | a member of the Legislature has accord- ! imrly proposed to tax beards. I don't I know why Americans should have so I strong; a prejudice in favour of shaving- I have just been reading • one of the latest American novels, and the heroine remarks somewhere that she can forgive a baJdheaded man, j but there is no excuse in the world for a man who "wears hair on his face." Poss;bly that young lady had not read jvipiing," or had forgotten the opinion eif tho heroine in "the Story of the Gadsbys," who held that a man without a moustache —but, no, Kipling is copy- | right, fair reader —please look up the | "Story of the Gadsbys" yourself. But anyway beards are going to be taxed in America, so why not in New Zealand? ! '&k r b r i"£r&&"Z"l.~'i? If fie Colonial Treasurer wants to find an excuse for this innovation, he has only to read the preamble to the New Jersey Bill- It is there pointed out that men cultivate beards eie,ner because they are too mean to shave, or because they desire to hide their features " ior ulterior and often base motives-". It is further recorded that Holmes, "the trunk murderer," wore a beard, and that Palmer, tiie celebrated poisoner, wore whiskers ; a\>o that Judas Iscariot had red hair. This List point is, I presume, the reason that red beards are to be taxed 20 per cent higher all round than beards of any other ciilour. Tbe scale of charges is really interesting, and may be practically useful when Sir (-.Joseph Ward returns. An ordinary beard is estimated at £1; but whiskers more than 6 inches long are-charged at the rate of £2 per inch. When the whiskers are associated with a bald head the impost is raised to £5. This last is the limit, except for— -and: i am sure my readers would never guess the exception—that truly American institution, the "goatee," which i_ se t down at £10. "Why the traditional glory of '"Uncle Sam" should be so severely dealt with, I really can't undertake to say. But here, anyway, is a novel and convenient torm of direct taxation- and if "Mr. Asquith had only known about it in time-he might have been induced to cut off two or three pennies in the £ from - ihe income tax by euttmg oil his fellowbeams.