SOTHERN'S DILEMMA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4228, 8 October 1874, Page 3

SOTHERN'S DILEMMA.

(From the Alta California, July 25.) Sothern is always getting into trouble. Just now he is agitated' by one of those " widdles which no fellah can find' out." The great comedian does everything by telegraph. He keeps the lightning busy transmitting his conundrums to different parts of the world, and flashing back the answers. Since he has been in San Francisco he has received a number of electric messages, in comprehending which he has had no difficulty ; but the other day he got a cablegram by mail from New York, and it has worried him a great deal. This is how- it was. A letter came to him from New York, enclosing the following cabalistic message, which had been received there over the ocean cable: — "Sothern, "Wallack's Theatre, New York, America.—Yes." There is no signature, and nothing to tell whence the message came. .Of course, the management at Wallack's could know nothing about it, and they didn't think it of sufficient importance to telegraph across the continent, so they sent it by the slower process of the mail. When it reached Sothern, it puzzled him as much as it had his friends in New York. At .first he thought it might be a message from, the Spirit Land, even the spiritual telegraph which Mrs. McKingley says that " spirit chemists and scientists are perfecting on the other side." .But, on reflection, he couldn't remember having propounded any conundrums to the disembodied, so he abandoned that theory. Then he recollected that he had inquired of an English friend whether that buffalo that he killed on the plains had arrived safe, and he felt sure that this mysterious message was the answer. To satisfy himself, he set the cable to work, and at a cost of lOOdols. or so, found out that his friend hadn't sent him any message, and didn't know anything about the buffalo. Then it struck him that it must be a communication from Fred.- Lyster, who had been entrusted with the duty of asking some. anxious Melbourne managers whether they would accede to. his terms of £12,000 for the engagement they desired to make with him; and, to ascertain definitely, he started a message over the cable to Lyster. Meanwhile, refreshing his memory, he began to think it might have come from Buclcstone, at London, with whom also he was in negotiation; and lie cabled him, and found out it hadn't. Lyster didn't respond in time, somehow, and John McCullough wanted to bet that Lyster hadn't had time to get to Melbourne and transact his business, and the message couldn't be from him ; but Sothern satisfied himself that it was otherwise, and had about made up his mind to start on the next steamer for Australia, when, to complicate matters, the steamers were taken off the route, and he couldn't go". Sothern was getting exasperated. He pondered over that despatch, wondering whether it was from Lyster or somebody else, and if Jhe latter, whom ? McCullough figured out the time consumed in travel, &c, and showed him that it couldn't be from Lyster. This left the comedian all at sea. At last a happy thought struck him. That message was from Hampshire. He has a friend over there, who is a Benedict of a year's standing. He had written Sothern (who wishes to be a godfather) that he was about to be blessed with what he hoped would be a boy, and Sothern had written to him jocosely inquiring if it 'wasn't twins. The puzzled comedian thought that surely the strange message was an answer to this inquiry, and he invested a good-sized purse in telegraphing to find out, and in learning that it was only a girl, and that the message hadn't come from Hampshire. And so it went. Sothern had his blood up, and was determined to discover where that message came from, if the wires could be made to do it; but they couldn't. He sent all sorts of messages to all sorts of places—wherever there was anybody who, he thought, could possibly have sent him the mystifying despatch ; but all to no purpose. He can't find out anything about it. ' The only result of his efforts, is the hope of an early reduction in cable rates, if he doesn't succeed in solving the riddle. At present, having racked his memory in vain for any more hints of the probable paternity of that singular "Yes," he is taking a rest. McCullough advises him to consult Foster, the medium, and if he cant't impart any information, to give the thing up as past finding out. He had better do that. Life is too short to be spent in trying to study out such conundrums. He says " A fellah who don't give his address or sign his name must be a nass."