FUNNY STORIETTES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 99, 24 April 1909, Page 6

FUNNY STORIETTES.

A- ' UNAUTHORISED. An enraged lawyer called on m Belfast newspaper manager, who by mistake had inserted the death of one of his clients who, was still in the lamd1 of ■the living. He wound up a. warm lecture thus: — "And for the future, if you insert a death in. your paper, unless informed of the same by the deceased himself, I'll make you pay, ■aaid pay dearly."

ALMOST GENEROUS.

Harry M. Daugheirty, of Columbus, who, some persons believe, will be the next United' States Senator from Ohio, while in the national capital (recently told, this story to the "Washington Post-. Two Irishmen, were discussing the death of a faiend. "Said Pat: " ' Sure, Casey was a good fellow.' " 'He was that,' replied Mike. 'A good fellow Casey.' ; "'And a cheorful man was Casey \' said Pat- " ' A cheerful man' was Casey, the

cheerfulest I ever knew,' echoed Mike. .. " 'Casey was a generous man, too,' said Pat. > " ' Generous, you ©ay? Well, I don't know so much about thai. Bid Casev ever buy you anything?' " '"Well, nearly,' replied Mike, scratching his head. ' One day he came iiito Flaherty's bar-iTocnn, where me and my friends were drinking, and he said to us: ' Well, men, what are we going to have—rain or isnow?' "

HE HAD NOT ARRIVED

A good story is told of the clerk of a little village church of the West of England, where the service_ is never commenced on Sunday mornings until the squire has taken his seat. . One Sunday, however, the squire happened' to be later than usual; but the clergyman who was officiating, being a stranger, was not acquainted with the ways of the place. "When the wicked man " he started, wheni up jumped the clerk, and shouted, "Stop! stop sir! He's not come yet!"

HE WENT BACK,

It was old Gile's first visit to Looir dom, and he was greatly terrified by what he saw—the taxicabs, motor 'buses, and tubes. To make things worse', a boy with a poster came along: "Collapse of Middlesex." -.' •

"Well, I'llbe gormed!" he said; "that's what conies of all these tcobs iamd things. I'm not goin t g to risk my loife."

So he toddled off to the station, and took train back to the- country.

THE FOREMAN'S MISTAKE

Among the iiomy-haiided _ dailybread winners we know, it is' proverbial that the veiry •hardest way to earn one's living is to serve a certain firm of parcel carriers, who start their yards at 6 a.m. to the tick, but seem ■to have mo fixed hour for closing. A worn-out carman crawled wearily through the gates at 6.10 on- the morning of last Christmas Eve, but ftae lynx-eyed foreman, dropped on him. "Aha! Peters, just spotted you, have I ? Fined sixpence for being late."

"Chuck it, guvnor;, chuck it!" snarled Peters, feebly. "I ain't knocked off from yesterday yet."

AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY,

"My wife," he ireanarked, "hasmade a, very important discovery." "Indeed," said his oompamion, "what is it, ear?"

"A new substance that is appaireihitly indestructible.'' His companion recalled the fact that the wife had been a. professor of natural sciences prior to heir marriage, and inquired if she had been long *at work upon the invention.. . ' 'No,'' _he ■' replied, ' fa,nd; it came about quite by accident. She was trying to makei a sponge cake."

HERE IS A NOVELTY,

A street hawker recently introduced a novelty in keyholes]

He said: "Here you are, gentlemen; tiie greatest invention of the age." Passer (stopping to listen): ''Wlua'.t is it?"

Hawker: "A magnetised keyholeplate for front doors. It will attract aai ordinary latch key from a distance of two feet. All you have to do to find the keyhole is to take out your key and hang1 on to it."

Three men are .■reported to have been injured in the crowd wnich gathered to buy the novelty.

with two words—Tariff Reform. It called for hard thinking, and much work, and administrative experience which could only 'be acquired in actual practice. The remedy for unemployment to which Mr Webb referred is outlined in the Minority Report of .the Poor Law Commission. After an immense amount of investigation, study and thought, the Commissioners who signed that report boldly announced this conclusion : "We have to report that in our judgment it is now administratively possible, if it is sincerely wished to do so, to remedy most of the evils of unemployment."

LABOUR EXCHANGES NEEDED

The first essential step is to organise the facilities for obtaining work by means of a national system of labour exchanges. These exchanges would bring the out-of-work in touch with the employer wanting men. Instead of having to tramp scores of miles in search of a job, he would go to the nearest exchange, register his application, and obtain far more information than he could hope to gain personally as to vacancies ,in all parts of the country. In Germany the public exchanges fill two million situations per annum in this way. In the casd. of casual labour employers would Tbe compelled to hire what men they needed, at the labour exchanges, and the aim of the exchange would be to arrange matters so that each "casual" should have a full week's work. This would -/mean entirely squeezing out,the surplus labour. At Liverpool Docks/ for instance, there are 15,000 dockers, but there is only 'work for a maximum of 10,000. In order that 10,000 might be regularly employed, 5000 would have to be Squeezed out, and for these 5000 other provision would be made. A great deal of the present boylabour would also be squeezed out under the minority scheme; The ranks of casual labour are largely recruited from boys who have "grown out of their jobs" and beeii turned adrift without any trade at their fingers'- ends. To remedy this evil it is proposed that boys from fifteen to eighteen should not be employed longer than thirty hours a week, and that every boy should attend a training school-for an average of five hours a day. For girls a similar scheme is proposed, including instruction in domestic science. This halving of boy and girl labour would make situations for thousands of under-em-ployed men and women. It is further proposed that the hours of railway and tramway servants shall be' reduced to sixty, if not forty-eight hours a week. The more work there is provided in these ways for men, the less necessary will it be for women to go into the labour market and undersell male labour.

To counteract the effects of prolonged periods of trade depression, the report suggests that, say, forty millions of the 150 million pounds now spent annually .by national and local governments should be set apart to be spent on necessary public works when depressions set.in. This would tend to regularise the demand for labour.

The surplus labour sifted out by these processes of organising the labour demand would have to be carefully graded and classified, and assisted according to their willingness to work. Insurance against unemployment through trade unions would be encouraged by the State, as in* Germany. Unskilled out-of-works would be provided with maintenance and training with a view to restoring them to the labour market improved instead of 'deteriorated by their term, of unemployment. For those who fight shy of work, for the tramps, Lhe wastrels, the' rogues out of gaol, there would be a detention colony, but not on the lines of a penal settlement, for the aim of the treatment would be to restore their self-respect rather than merely to punish them. If they earned the right to their freedom by showing willingness to work, they would be given a fresh chance outside the colony. In this way the demoralised loafers and pitiable looking beggars who infest the streets of the great cities would be cleared off, and set to work in the detention colpny.

MINISTER OF LABOUR

To direct the whole scheme a Minister of Labour would be appointed, with a seat in the Cabinet, and Labour would have a Government Department to itself under his control. Such in brief outline is the scheme, and if the Government is sincere in its desire to grapple with the unemployment problem it will sxirely give this project its most serious consideration. Mr Webb, in saying that the remedy could be applied in a single session, did not mean that the evils of unemployment could be got rid of so promptly as all that. What he urged was that the machinery designed to remedy these evils could be set going in a single session, and from that moment the work of organising demand and supply in the-

national labour market would be begun, the wastage stopped, and the evils treated at their source. From that time onward, as the organisation was perfected and the administrators acquired the necessary f experience, unemployment would be a diminishing evil, and in a few years could be practically eliminated, with all its attendant miseries and horrors. And the cost? No doubt the cost' is great, but it is small indeed compared with what unemployment is costing England to-day, not only in money, but in demoralised .and wasted lives, in ruined honies, in sickness, disease and crime, in human suffering and misery- And if the money spent will cure these evils, the gain will far outweigh the cost.