MORNING TELTPHONE

Evening Star, Issue 10767, 31 October 1898, Page 2

MORNING TELTPHONE

you w«rf **trgm ** wsmmsw% day: yet Til wager that your n%lioTsi»H cerning Halloween are of the you feckless Southron? Have mercy! Don't turn on year Boric I toPr-r- • Well, I'll stoop to your ignorance. Dinna ye ken, ye gowk—but I'm forgetting: don't you know that this is the . I was under the impression that it was morning—but go on. r j Stop your blethering! The night, I say, when merry, friendly folks together do-con-vene, to burn their nits an' pou their stocks, aji' baud their Halloween—fu' Myth~o, : / I thought you were to talk English. * . -■• It's Burns, man—rantin, royin JRobln! Would you have me translate him into your tasteless English? Listen: The lassies feat an' cleanly neat, Mair braw than when they're fine; Their faces Wythe fu* sweetly kythe Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin: The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs Weel knotted on their garten; Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs Gar lasses' hearts gang startm Whyles fast at night. Is there much more of that? Twenty-eight stanzas; but I'll get through it No you don't!—one is quite enough: ex pede Herculem. Away with your pagan Latin on the blessed Halloween! Blessed? I have my doubts. Do you remember Jo's remark concerning that epithet? Jo? what Jo? Poor Jo in ' Bleak House.' He has conducted Lady Dedlock to the pestilent grayeyard where her lover lies, and she asks him—"ls this place of abomination consecrated ground? " Jo knows " nothink of consequential ground," so she asks, " Is it blessed? " " Which," says Jo, in the last degree amazed. " Is it blessed?"—"l'm blest if I know, but ] shouldn't think it warn't. Blest? I should think it was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink."—Well, I am inclined to suspect that your blessed Halloween is " t'othered." Ah! but then, like Jo, you don't know nothink. Isn't it on Halloween that the lads and lasses seek fairy aid in order to get a look at their destined spouses? We-e-el! I'm not saying but that was the original idea, but But we live in a matter-of-fact age, and they don't play that sort of game at the Choral Hall—en ? is that what you mean ?, You've about hit it: no doubt it's a sontewhat Bowdlerised Halloween that we keep. 0, mighty, just, and beautiful Bowdlerl _ By the way, ' Bleak House' is one of the" ■ books Burton is going to deal with tomorow night. Yes, and a stunner it is, too. What » collection of London characters! —what romance of "the dusty purlieus of the law!" Krook—Guppy—Tony Jobling—Snagsby— Miss Flite, the Smallweeds, Tulkinghorn— Not forgetting Mrs Jellaby and Borioboola Gha! Sir Leister Dedlock is rather a wooden

Dear old loyal-hearted Tory! He ought: to be in the Legislative Council. You remember what he Much obliged, old man; but I prefer Burton. * And then ' David Copperfield' 0, for goodness' sake get away from books: "for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity." Illiterate bumpkin! You are on a level with Tennyson's village wife, who observed: " Books, as thou knaws, beant nowt." Books, es I said afoor, thebbe neyther 'ere nor theer! But I sarved 'em wi' butter an' heggs for huppurds o' twenty year. Butter and heggs are about your mark. And a very good thing too. Books aren't in it with butter an' heggs " as a necessary provision for the breakfast table " (to quote the cocoa advertisements). Ah! you recall sorrow to my soul. Only last week I read such a pretty little tale—a pathetic record of heroism—and I was just thinking of cutting it out of the paper when I found—woe is me! — Mother Siegel? Yea, verily, it belonged to that diabolical race. A " safe cure " for your pleasure, eh? Self-respect does not return in a moment after such a humiliating experience. No: it is as though sorA wretched little larrikin were pointing at you in impish glee and chirping " Wot a have!" Bringing his thumb unto his nose—his fingers all spread out. There-doesn't seem to be much news in the paper. Cricket wasn't great on Saturday. You can't expect big scoring with this kind of weather. Look at this morning!What an ideal cricket day! Baker made a careful half-century against good bowling. Well, you must excuse me now. You'll come to the Halloween gathering to-night? The Halloween gathering be—jowned! I'll have none of your scoffing at the old Scottish ways and days. Man O, I'm sick of your " man, man, man " : can't you talk like a Christian? Scotland's hills and Scotland's dales! It is on occasions like this that the fathers and mothers look back longingly to the bygone times and heart-remembered places. We shall return no more! More's the pity! Even Stevenson didn't take quite kindly to the idea of a Samoan resting-place. " It's a wrench not to be planted in Scotland—that I can never deny—if I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Singular that I should fulfil the Scot's destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!" I forgive him for the sake of that "beastly," And now that you've got that load oS your chest, perhaps you'll let me get to work.