THREE BONNY BOYS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 14

THREE BONNY BOYS

NEW ARRIVALS IN SYDNEY

(From "Thf Post's" Reprmntatlvt.) SYDNEY, 31st August. They say that tho rich have all tho luck and the poor all the babies. In a tiny weatherboard cottage, only a handful of a place, in Green street, Waterloo, triplet boys were born on Monday, and although they have not taken much notice of Sydney so far, Sydney has commenced to display a great interest in them. The triplets were born to Mrs. Phillips, wife of a metal worker earning £5 a week, and there are six other children, iive boys and one girl. The girl is the eldest, and is 14 years of age. The triplets were strong and healthy, and while one weighed 4Jlb, the others weighed 41b each. The mother and father were delighted, and tho whole neighbourhood was seething with excitement. So much so that there was a continuous stream of unknown but friendly callers to see the babies. Since then interest, if anything, has increased. The nurse admits that- she received a bit of a shock, but, with ready thought, she tied different coloured ribbons to the boys to denote their order of arrival in the world. The father and mother since then have decided upon suitable names for the three little Phillipses. The one with the blue ribbon will be Norman; the one with the pink ribbon, Mervyn; and the one with the mauve ribbon, Jack. Norman, Mervyn, and Jack. There was quite a lot of commotion in tho little weatherboard house witli tho visitors and llio Pressmen and the photographers, but through it all Mrs. Phillips merely smiled, and said that .she only hoped she would be soon well enough to take care of her increased family. The brothers and sister of the triplets could hardly keep their eyes off them. They kept creeping to the side of the cot and peeping at tho little mites cuddled into a bundle under a cosy litlte heap of blankets. Harold, aged 10 years, has the prodigious sum of £10 in the bank at school, saved slowly, painfully, over many years, but. the whole of his resources were placed immediately at the disposal of his mother. "That will be a present for you, mum," said the financier of the family. Arthur, one of the younger boys, is not so affluent. He likes sticks of lolly, and his money-box is empty; but he has decided to scrub the kitchen for the nurse every morning, so as to make up for his lack of;wealth, And so, in this poor but supremely happy family everyone is paying homage to tho triplets, Norman, Mervyn, and Jack. They all love one another, and, after all, that is the ultimate pinnacle of happiness in any family. Triplets are rather rare. For instance, during the last ton years only 43 sets of triplets havo been born in the State. It was to be expected, therefore, that more than passing interest would be paid by the public to the trio when the newspapers announced their arrival. One newspaper sent a£s note out to the home immediately, and from day to day persons all over the State havo been sending congratulations, frequently accompanied by a present. "God b\6ss 'em!" said a resident of Queanbeyan—the hotel centro for Canberra —briefly, and enclosed £1. A pastrycook in oiie.oi tho suburbs is going to make a" big christening cake, full of nuts and fruit, and covered with a layer of icing that will make the mouth of ■the «ix older children water. It will hi a big cake, a tremendous cake, a giant, a real whale of a cake. Those Phillips children have already conjured up a vision of that cake. "D'ye think they will be able to get it inside that door?" asked one of the boys of a reporter as he nodded towards tho front door. "I suppose it will have lolly all over it, just like one of those wedding cakes," added tho lad. Tho Food for Babies Fund, Committee has made an offer of free creamy milk for a month, as much as everyone can drink; and there have been many other splendid examples of good-natur-"bd assistance to the working man and his big, happy family. It is an indication, in a way, of how splendid the public really is. But ttferc is one thing that has everyone smiling. It is the plight of that"pastrycook. He has to make this christening cake up to the expectations of those six hearty-eating children. It has to be big, very big; and it has to havo a lot of lolly on it; but it is a safe wager that if that cake is only as big as half a loaf it will be ushered inside with cheers.