NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 75, 29 March 1913, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

I ,i _iin who had nothing else to do lias 1 Ljinto himself the task of gatherthe comic papers of six na- |* the leading topics which appear tv the favourite themes of humour in Pbtuitry. Here is n brief summary *.*,[result:— The Hermans.' pot ticklers '*'..\ professor who forgets his luull'la'; f* college student who drinks beer j-touches" friends for a loan; the IS who worship army oßicers; a husS] without the frnul-ilnor key; the ■J's lover, usually a soldier hidden in £ kitchen; mother-in-law. KnglishIprofer: Kisses (in all descriptions) ; ■J,* who are r.fraid of .retting mixed up| 'L a miss anil be sited for 'breach of Hise; an unlucky better; an iinEgoU player: ditto, foothall; ditto, UtetT ditto Hcgliy: Amerie-tiis who S.through the nose: mother-in-law. people giggle at jukes on soldiers ',4 nurses; wives who—; liusbatuls jj,.; boys who—-: girls who—; the .-■• twin tourist in Puis: (iovcrnmentJdenlatches: the modi* before the lust; j, last mode; the latest mode; the »fV latest mode: Sarah Bernhardt'* . c ' ; mother-in-law. Americans laugh f__i"ost anything, but their favourite topics are: The common people .ijshed'by a trust: n stolid EnglishJju; an Italian who cats spaghetti; a _P_it (occasionally a nosp) smashed |aa fisticuff: a bottle of whisky labelled •"lemonade"; an Hallinn hurdy-gurdy; eother-in-la-w. The Italians' favourites ire: A glutton country priest; Roman urchins; a Neapolitan cabby; a tailor's Ujj. a cigar that docs not dray; the ■olouel' 3 orderly: Indies' hats; mother- __«'. Finally, the Spaniards' pre_ctod jokes arc always on corridas, toras v espadas; when they change they ut on toros. corridas y espadas, or esMifc, corridas y tores. Once in a „i!e mothers-in-law get a shot, too.

Tlie Suffragette outrn.gc In the Jewel House of the Tower is the second occa.joq on which a woman has attempted |_ destruction of the regalia, says a niter in the "Pall Mall Gazette." When He regalia was kept in the basement of it Martin's Tower and shown behind strong iron bars a woman once—it was _ Waterloo year—thrust her hands tough the lrars. seized the Crown, and m'lly iore it to pieces. Many people imagine that the regalia never leaves the lower except for a Coronation, _ut .(pan Ramsay, son of the poet, and fort painter to George 111., was eniirjted with the Crown jewels and rejib'a at his own house when he was fini_isg the portrait of Queen Charlotte. A •aird was placed round the 'builcliii{r in trder to secure the safety of the relics.

I When a defendant charged at the london South-Western Police Court _imed to have seen his Worship on a nc/coiirse, the magistrate qualified his statement as "a most outrageous sugjstion, for I have to sit in police ttarts." Baron Martin, who retired tram the Bench in 1874, w.as not so queamish about racing. In an action bought by a lady to recover damages to having been pushed off a crowded railway platform, the Baron remarked, liter hearing her counsel's opening itatement: —"There is no case. I go rSaary year to Epsom to see the Derby. I =l«tt pushed here and there at Victoria pSiation, and it serves mc right, for I gllave no business to be there. I ought ll iolie here. But if I get knocked off the Si platform, I shall not bring an action jf against the company. It will bz all my-i-;j own fault."

BT.C finding of a pair of tiny coffins in tie old monks' burial-ground at Peter_rough goes far to confirm one of the ■n ibbey's most picturesque traditions, says H i London daily. Legend has. it that li Canute sent his twin sons there to be H suiooled, and that the boys were drowned Wi ia crossing Whittlesey Mere. Hencep forth, whether the ascription is true or || Bit, the two coffins lie in honour in the |:,i Cathedral, to inspire the saga-writers of H the future. The bard has mere chance |f tkn the historian, certainly, and the lil noralist most of all. He may dwell on S™ tie irony of the old sea-king losing his I mm in a misorahle inland lake; and he jj nay ponder on the likely fate of these ■; fro princes bad they escaped a watery m pave. Prohablv one of them would have H uralated Romulus or CaracaWa. and R alented his twin rival for ever. Otherfa rise he would hardly hnve been tbe son B °1 such a turbulent father. 6 — I Mr. Hnpkin- 7 . of tbe Nottinghamshire II County Council, ha? found tint the If Council school livmn-books contain a

food many things which scarcely comment themselves to lhe modern "scientific" spirit. He object-, for example, to th» description of Heaven, which begins. -With jasper glow thy bulwarks. % streets with emerald blaze." Now, •redo not object to that at all; for its pifturc must appeal charmingly to tlie I'oung imagination, and exuberance of spirit is corrected soon enough in the sad attrition of life. The sort, of hymn to-which we do most emphatically object is the following kind of outburst, of greediness-. - "lis religion that doth give sweetest pleasure while we live. 'Tis religion doth supply solid comfort when we •Be." \\> have seen that ill Scots hymn-hooks. Contrasted with its promise of "soli,] comfort." Hip "jasper bulwarks" and the "emerald blaze" of the Knglish hymn arc an uplifting vision indeed.

After the clubs. Cue newspapers! says •lie "Pall Mall liuzette." There is reason to believe that the militant SufTra?e ttes con tempi vie nil organised assault ra the windows of the newspaper offices n. Fleet Street and elsewhere, and they are not likely to take into consideration whether the'papers they so attack are ja their favour or against them. There is abo a deep-laid scheme to wreck for some days the entire telegraphic and telephonic communication of tbe United Kingdom, but the details of this are being very earcfull*. guarded. In tbe meantime, it "may he added that special orders hare just been received for the protection of Windsor Castle. It is curious that in their raid on the Pall Mall clubs tho Suffragettes left the Service institutions severely alone; neither the United Service, the 'junior United Service, nor the "Rag" was attacked. The attack Jpon Prince Christian's residence in Pall -'■all is not the first that has been levelagainst the historic* Schomberg Bouse, whose name is derived from one °f the Dutch generals brought to this country by William Prince of Orange. In '090 it was very nearly demolished by a J°ny of disbanded soldiers, and again, in the Gordon riot, in I7SO, an attempt was til-Vile to sack and burn it. The original m.-uisirm was divided into three houses, "•"I in one of these Gainsborough passed tnvay.