BRIEF MENTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 115, 18 May 1906, Page 4

BRIEF MENTION.

The death is announced of the Rev. William Faulkner, a Methodist minister of note, at Charters Towers, Queensland.

For placing a placard on a Wellington hotel, without the consent of the owner, the delinquent, a boy, was fined 10s, with costs 7s.

" Ah ! " he said to her over their ice cream, " it is very sweet, but not so sweet as you." " It is soft," she returned promptly, " but not so soft as you." " And it is cold," ho concluded, " but not so cold as you."

A Wellington resident, known to bo a " good mark,' 'inquired the rent of a sixroomed house at Kilburnie recently and was informed that it was £2 a week !

" Wait till wo have got our fleet. Won't we then make England speak," was the legend, says a correspondent in a Home journal, on some cakes sold at a Christmas fair in Germany recently.

Mistress:" Mary, these banisters always seem dusty. I was at Mi's Johnson's today, and hers are as bright and as smooth as glass." Mary : " She has three small boys, mum."

Five years ago the total number of postcards delivered in the United Kingdom was about 400,000,000 ; last year it was 750,000,000 ; and if the recent rate of increase is maintained the total for this year may reach 900,000,000.

President Eoosevelt is sending to the Empress of Japan, in recognition of the courtesy extended to Miss Eoosevelt during her recent visit to Japan, the finest sewing machine ever made in America.

A woman has been elected as local magistrate in the commune of Rank Herlein, Hungary* because the whole adult male population of the place had emigrated to America, and there was not a single man left to fill the position.

" Noah's wife," wrote a boy in an examination, " was called Joan of Arc." " Water," wrote another, t: is composed of two gases, oxygen and cxmbrigen," " Lava," said a third, " is what the barber puts on your fJee." " A blizzard," declarei another child, "is the inside of a fowl."

The healthiest itrade in the world is that of dye-making from coal-tar. Tar and the smell of it are the best of all tonics and tissue builders. The average life of a tar-worker is 86 years. The mortality is 80 per cent, lower than in any ether factory trade.

Jokeley: " Funny thing about a man's tongue." Pokeley : " Go ahead ! Let's have it."

Jokeley: " Well, when it's very thick the excuses it makes to his wife are too thin."

No fewer than 44 per cent of the inhabitants of the provinces of Rome are illiterates, while the Eternal City itself is behind every other capital of Europe in the matter of education, and stands nineteenth in the list of Italian towns.

Finnegan: "Oh, yis, Oi can undershtand how thini astronomers can calkilato th' distance ay a shtarr, its weight, dinsity, and colour, and all thot —but th' thing that gets me is, how th' divvle do they know its name."

In celebration of St. David's Day, the Ist Royal Welsh Fusiliers had a holiday at Aldershot, and every man wore a leek in his cap. The Welsh goat, which the King presented to the regiment, paraded with gilded horns and silver ornaments hung about him.

A political candidate was justifying flogging in the army. " There is," said he, "no necessary disgrace attached to being flogged. I was once most unjustly flogged myself. It* was for telling the truth !" " Ees !" came a voico from the rear, " an' it cured 'cc !"

At Akaroa an Thursday the defendant in an application for a prohibition order asked his wife, the complainant: "Do I get drunk too often ?" The wife replied : " Well, Tom, perhaps not more than once a week on the average." The prohibition order was granted.

The elderly lady who was looking through the shop of a dealer in knickknacks . picked up a small hand-bag. " Are you sure," she inquired, " that this; is real crocodile skin ?" " Absolutely certain, madam," replied the dealer ; "I shot that crocodile myself." "It looks rather soiled," observed his customer. " Naturally, madam," explained the salesman ; " that is whore it struck the ground when it tumbled off the tree."