BRIEF MENTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 250, 19 October 1905, Page 4

BRIEF MENTION.

Hospital pan:—" When is a bed net a bed ?—When it Is a boggy." Notice it? New Zealand's revenue for the first half of this year was £100,000 more than for a similar period last year. Last year 571 people died -in New Zealand from cancer alone, while consumption was responsible for the death of 598, "Bat," asked the boy's mother, v isn't there anything in school in which yon excelled ?" " Snre," replied the bad boy, " I made more blunders than any of the others." The most curious vegetable in the world is the truffle, since it has neither roots, stem, flowers, leaves, nor seedo. In some parts dogs and pigs are trained to dig for it, the animals being guided by their sense of smell. " Lady : •' What! You've jnst come out of prison ? I wonder you are not ashamed to own it! " Ne'er-do-well: " I don't own it, lady—wish I did. I was only a lodger." A retnrn shows the total importations of potatoes dnring the last eight months into the Colony from the following places at the following prices : London 6f tons, £640 ; Sydney 270J £1707 ; Melbonrne 239£, £1547 ; Hobart 329 £1856; Devonporfe 4-}, £23; San Francisco 857*, £5252, The following note reached a schoolmaster from the boy's father, informing him of tbe canse of his son's absence from school the previons day. It naturally caused some merriment, and judging from the way he signed the epistle it in no way flatters him. The note ran as follows :—

" Please ekecose Tommy not being at school yesterday as he was kept at home to wash—his father."

Tbe vicar,of a Battersea (London) church, in counting out a recent Sunday's collection, found in the box a penny posfege stamp, on the obverse sideVdf which was written : " This is all' I can afford. It is the widow's mite!"

Cardinal Manning declared that tbe three greatest evils in the Roman Chinch were French devotional books, theatrical music, and tbe pulpit orator. " And the last," he added bitterly "i 3 the worst."

When asked at Stratford if he were guilty of drunkenness, James Collins made an unusual reply. *• If the constable says so," he said. " I have never known a policeman to tell a lie."

Three city youths went out one day in the conntry fishing. Becoming very hungry, and having nothing with them to eat, they went into a waysid© house and asked for something to eat and drink. The misses of the house got them three mugs of tea and some cakes.

One of three yontbs, a bit of a wag, noticing the mugs, s-iid : " Eh, missus, where are thn saneers? ' " Al'," said the woman, with a sly little twinkle in her hurnorocs e.vo, "we don't give eancora to mugs." Th<3 wag said no more.

In connection with the tragic death of Sir Henry Irving and the appropriateness of his dying liuea, eqaaily caricnß coincidences are furnished by the death of two other members of the theatrical profession.

The other day Mr Charles Arnold expired while sieging ** We take oil our hats to the King." "To the King of Kings," remarked a friend in the audience.

Madame Patey, a famocs vocalist, who visited the colonies soma years ago, sang to a crowded audience the last lines of a Scottish ballad " And there a corpse lay she," and retiring to the wings died.

"To sea the Prince of Wales take up the refrain 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow,' at a luncheon in Westminster Hall, was worth watching," says a French reporter. "We have nothing like that in France-—an Heir-Apparent singing a popular tune at an official banquet in chorus with his comrades. We are too much buttoned up and tight-laced."

AU she desires is love, you say ? That shows how much you know ; She wants to see the matinee And to tbe.circus go. Sbe wants a handsome diamond ring, She wants a tope of pearls ; She wants a poodle on a string, She wants some extra curls ; She wants a bonnet twice a year, She wants an Elater hat; She wants to read her title clear To a stylish city fl*t; She wants a four-seat, motor car, She wants a real Worth gown; She wants a trip to Europe, or At least to Sydney town ; She wants a cask of rare cologne, She wants a diamond pin; Sbe wants a carriage of her own To go out calling in ; She wants tbe earth, the Milky Way, And half the stars above, And yet you have the nerve to say That all she want? is love!