THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 78, 15 December 1906, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

! Who can tma*untea brave the Critlojsrage? | Or note unmoved hismention m the Critic's page? Parade his error m the public eye ? And Mother Grvmdy's xage defy? Honesty is the best policeman. A King's best guard is the love of his people. • * ' . • Nobility, like great rivers, has often an obscure origin. • , • •■ ' Riches and care 'are as inseparable as sun and shadow. • * * , Kings have long arm's ; they should have short memories. • • • . When a man is kissing a girl he is often calculating what sort of a wife she would make. •• « • The Rev. J. J. North, Baptist Minister of Wellington, . puts participation m Tattersall's sweeps on an exact level with sensual indecency. What ! next ? asks the Taihape "News." It's Vhard t 0 say ; but the parson who ex,hi bits such- an utter lao l / of any sense |of decency as to say such a thing. I would be capable of indecency himself.

To flat f "T a good man is needless ;; a, bad one an insult.- ■„''.. i It is m the power of every man to be rich, provided he be content. Learning is t^the mind what dress is. to the bo4y, useful and brnamen- • '-'.;# . • Pedantry is the foppery of learn-; in°\ as fringe and embroidery are of dress. ■ : # ■ ■ •• '••■■■ Prosperity has the qualities of (the W-aters of Lethe-rthey who taste of it forget themselves. ■ • • .* A man is very unfit to live m. the 'world wlio cannot keep. his temper, his secrets, and his money. r * ■■' -■ •■' ■ •' .-, ! The actions of men are like the index of a hook ; they point out what is most remarkable m them. , * * * , The annual consumption of soap m India only reaches the modest amount of one bunce per head, Phew ! ■ * • ' •'.■■■■. Ingratitude is a poison so deleterious a nature that it even destroys the very bosom m which it harbors. It is proposed to start a "school for wives'" m- England. Why not, start a sohobi to. teach fishes to swim. • - • . I Experience and. observation are the lighthouses of reason, which ditc. .-us; m our steerage through the dangerous ; ocean of life. ' It is amazin? that men should affect to know everything, and yet be so deficient m the very first principle of wisdom— know thyself. It is not Fortune,, but we,\ that atre* blind, "foi- with content a little will satisfy the purposes, df-. life; : Without: it thousands are insufficient: " A noble mansion wi^h an avaricious owner is like a very fine bindius .to an ill-written book ; you must not expect to meet with good ■entertainment within. • • • - "Save your breath to cool your broth," is a saying which cannot be better applied than to the ladies engaged at a tea table m tittle-tattle and scandal. ••' ■ • On the fourth page of a recent issue of the "Waipawa Mail" appeared twb articles, one entitled "What will the ; Exhibition cost ?" and the other "A i l'ortune Squandered." This looks a deliberate act of Lese Majeste aecainst Emperor Munro 1., which calls* for drastic punishment by his nibs. « • • IN NEED OF WEED. A friend m need Is a friend indeed ! Said the. chap who asked For a pipe of weed But the "friend indeed" With a hauirhtv tone Pushed past and cried— "No ! Buy your own !" • « • The fuss being made by clean white New Zealanders of the visiting Chinese Commissioner • and his amicus curiae is. to say the least, disgusting m the extreme. Of course the prefect is pleased with N.Z.s prosperity and no doubt 1# will loudly, proclaim that fact through his native country, with the result that the poll-tax gatherers will have a busy time of it. • • '• The boss m charge of the freezing works at a place not far from Wellington actually orders the men undt&r him to preserve strict silence, ,even to the extent of npt answering a stranger who may ask a question. The Workers' Paradise ? Workers' Hell ! This sort of rotter should have the handling of a gang of coolies. He's not fit to Be placed over free white labor. _ • • * The Law Students of Wellington hatf a glorious night out last week and toast after toast was honored with preat eclat. The one over which all lingered long and lovingly and the subiect upon which young sharks gave a vent to their forensic eloquence was "prospective clients." Like fattening the Christmas turkey before eating. The pity of it is none of us know the day that we will be clients— when that time comes we will fully appreciate that toast. » « • • There is a Particularly low type of a m>. , burly bludoer and criminal, unfortunately loose m Wellington just now, who owns to the name of Bat. ! Mahoiv Bludger Bat has only just i been released from caol, and as he p-ot it hot m this paner over a cowardly assault on his unfortunate woman, the various scribes of "Truth" are threatened with all '. sorts of murder from Bat. Just as i i well for Bat to know this. TJn> 'Law i ' of this land allows a man to .shoot and kill m self-defence, surely such a dirty doe as this beast , Bat ought to be promptly |"vagged."

Wairarapa boasts • a Methodist parson named Ginger. Hot stuff ! ■ ■ -i :viv ;<#-,'•' '.',' : '... .•'■■': ■' /'' ' '• '. '. A' postcard/ dealer at Levuka,^ Fiji, has 'just ."gone up for two months for selling indecent postcards! • * « A way-back noospaper under the heading "Interesting Items >? records the goring of a child by a mad bull. Very interesting this,, especially for the small victim.. » • • MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY. Lovesick cat, ■ ' Man m bed ; Well aimed boot, Thomas dead ! An Aratapii cove boasts; that in 7 1.5 years he : has - prily , partaken of one meal away f rbm home. That's nothing "Critic" has m mind a man who has -never had a feed outside his home during 29 years. He comes out next year, though, ■ •■ ' ■ ■ • . . ' • .The Wairarapa "Daily Times," after announcing the victory of the Springboks over Wales, naively added that Wales, "with the aid of the referee," defeated the All Blacks by a try to nil, The small-mindedness of some folk is truly wonderful. ..'*'.'■.• - ' • Signs are not wanting. . that the smeUful Chow is slowly but surely worming his way into our -social life. At Taihapfl the Athletic Club is an'nouhcin r a. sports meetinE, advertised m its list ' of ■ nrizes 21' shillih!£S "given by Me Clr'n't. Fook. This vhilanthroh'' pigtail is the local greenstuff retailer. , . #- . ■# '. • ■ At recent Carter ton session a wowser named Thomas declared that the Methodist Church was breeding champions who in '.the future would- ride the world and direct it m reform. Deform will be the feature, of a world directed by th.6se., bi,bie-b?.n<?ing bouiiidcdmes% lJass. ' '..:..' ■ .- - ■■■ . . # - ' . «■ ,; • , A Mabri -was. charged at Wan,a;ahui' t'otherday with ; stealing two' hides,the property o£ A. Hatrick and C 6. The stolen articles were valued at Bs. Considering the ■ requisite thickness of their hides to withstand the nasty things said about Hatrick's river mohopolv. estimating their loss at 8s seems very reasonable indeed. • • ■• ■ •■■•■•■ ■ . • Taranaki isn't' the only part of God's Own where dairying spells infant slavery. Musselborough (Otago) schoolmaster complained at the last committee meetirie; that owing to having to carry milk round every morning his boys were irregular and unpiuictual at sob ool. Whether he considered them fit to learn any lessons after -their arduous- toil, schoolmaster didn't say, but his opinion can be surmised. • It is on such a matter as the,following that tommy taylor, isitt and all the cold water crowd maintain a discreet /silence : A boy on the East Coast died recently under distressing circumstances . The boy ; aged about 8 years, was out assisting his father so muster some cattle, and getting very hot. he drank' some cold water to quench his, thirst. After .. a few hours of intense suffering, he died from the effects. • ■ \ : ' : • ■ • • ' ■ • "A dirty coot," to use .an alleged O'Brienism, of ' a baker of the Dago savoring name of Cutelli, with an equally forlorn individual named Hope, an employee,' . were properly spanked by the Arbitration Court at Wan^anui. . Cutelli's breach was for falsifying his books to • make it appear that he was , paying .Hope ■ the award wage, viz., £2 10s, whereas the scab was receiving £2 ss. There are plenty of the Cutelli type m N.Z. and the ' Court ought t 0 socL. it on every time. • " • • A mild sensation was caused at the Quarter Sessions,' Sydney, recently, when a witness confessed, among other things, that he had been sentenced to death, but that the sentence had been commuted to imprisonment for 14 years. A charge of alleged assault and robbery was proceeding, land several witnesses, including the nrosecutor and the accused, admitted jthat they had been m gaol Such was the nature of the evidence, m fact as to elicit from the judge a remark that they all seemed to start oS an even mark. • • • The antics of an individual, possibly one of those sexual maniacs it is desirable should be put out of the wa^ m the Basin Reserve last Sunday morning were very marked, and the police might as well keep a wide eye open for him ere his diseased brain leads him into trouble. Armed with a of field-classes, attired m a cycling suit and, of course, possessed of a bicycle, this skunk seems to derive great pleasure from lying m the Tass a little distance from frolicinu female children and narticularly when the children a,re toppled over to scan what is to be sern through his "lasses. Tf there is no law to , protect children . from .this skunk,. Ihe sooner natural law is used on him tho better

Mark Twain,, who is. still m the front rank of American writers, reached ■71 years of- age on Noy. 30,. • ■ ' ■. • '. -• ■ '■ • An Ashburton telegram states that the season has been an unusually dry one. Notoriously . dry place, AskWton. An exchange announced, that on tour recently 36 howlers 'were accompanied by ten ladies • (relatives of the players). Parenthesis . was. evidently considered necessary to avoid any cronk impression as to the accompanying females' . connection with* the strolling players. ""•' r '..-.,/ •. • • What m the name of commonsense and raoe-purity did- our Tourist Department 1 send "literature" about New Zealand to Japan for ? Are we not sufficiently cursed' by Chinese interlopers without actually striving , -to pull m a "swarm of jabber ing Japanese jabber wocks' ? ' Parliament should have something to say about this idiotic, criminal action of the blethering tourist bureau., • »■■'»'■ It is said that- a Southern Polios Inspector was given a very rude shock the other day. He went into a reserve paddock where some of the men's tents are and m the daylight performed an act which is not usually v called up for daylight rehearsal. One of his own subordinates (a new •constable) caught him, and not knowin^'him, called him a ''dirty old cow" and told him to clear out, and m the words of the nursery rhyme he cleared- some, »-\ » ■• . The sentence on hellish Haase, i;he German brute who confessed to have ravished several of his own daughters, was a shamefully inadequate one. For a similar crime, at Mai'tlahd, a-: bout six years ago, a monster named Brown was , hanged, and. such ' a callous brute; as Haase, who forced his daughters , to # yield to him , under j threats,^should '-hive/. Surely .- g^t- all -the 'law allowed— -20 years. '"There- ■ • could riiot be a worse tease, so : why merely seven years ? When he .'comes out he'll" probably ' bepin on the younger children or' murder his' accusers. •■■"■• • > ■ The contractor for the new police barracks m Christchurch missed some .timber recently. He went to complain about the supposed theft to a certain police offioer and whilst pickin?, his way up tte back yard path, was surprised to see the missing timber on the wood heap. Don't ,know what the contractor said, or. what 'explanation the officer gave, but we shrewdly mess that the contractor will want the price and. the "oliceman his wood, and between the two the public will have to pay for their new police barracks through the hose. • * • * .'. For sheer hide following ad. m. Monday's "Post" would be hard- to beat : "Wanted, good Boy for wholesale house ; must write good hand and be good m figures ; from 13 to 17 years old ; £JLOO bond required; Food future for a bright boy ; both parents and boy must be total abstainers ; no others need apply. Ad- 1 dress Temperance, Evening 'Post.'" Suppose the good boy, having proved that neither poppa nor mumma were drunken sats, would be offered the p cineely sum p-! five bob a week by this maudlin temperance advocate. There must have been a rush for that snivvle. snouted saint's man's-work boy iob, with its £100 bond for the fidelity of an infant ! Anyhow, what great faith these Temperance people must have m each other's honesty ! v ' ■■ i . . • . ( ■ ; The first duty of a parent is to his or her child, but it is too often the case m New Zealand that unnatural parents either throw or are forced to throw their off-spring m the State. Such an instance of paternal disregard for a child's welfare came before Dr. McArthur, S.M., last Monday, when a man named Sylvester was called on to pay maintenance for his boy, who is m the Burnhain Industrial School. For two years not a penny piece had been paid towards the boy's keep, and Sylvester made things worse for himself when he observed that he did not, know where his child was. The Magistrate hit the nail on the head when, m making an ofder against Sylvester, he said, "If you can keep another woman you can keep your child." ■, J . •■ • The police and the U.S.S. Co. require to get a move on. and oner some protection to travellers by steamer on our coast. At present i practically every passenger vessel is ' infectefl by thieves who must, m many cases, be well known to the : sleuths if not to the ship's officers ; and robberies are continually being reported. An old resident of Picton district, travelling by the Miowera to view the Zibishun. had his bag opened and valuable papers, including deeds o f land, etc., stolen. The public should take special care while the ruph- traffic is on and avoid carrying unnecessary valuables either m their hif^ape or on their person. But it is the duty of the Company and the police to prevent crooks usir" their ships as theatres for predatory iProwlincs. up and down the coast.

A pocket is never 1 - empty. Wneif there i® nothing m it it is full of misery. ■■'- ,•.•■.»■•»■•* ■ . „ . The "Martin Fountain spa.cc cleared by the Quay "fire should be Kept clear and transformed into a city siouare. •. • # On a door m the Bank of New Zealand Buildings there is a printed sign which reads as follows : "Closed between .1 and 2 for lunch," Between 1 and 2 on Sunday morning a couple of festive Saturday night drunks stood gazing at the legend m silent wonderment, until one solved the problem /by saying, "I know. •Cumninif old Blanker, he means supper, only he thinks his missus might come along." , • Something wrong somewhere. The N:Z. Year Book shows deaths by ac-. cidentto he over 6. per cent. There are no statistics to show the per centasre of maimings. Against this horrible account the Elgin War Commission Tables show that the New Zealand Contingents' mortality FROM ALL CAUSES, was less than 1 per cent !. And maybe half of these accidental deaths occur m factories and are caused by unguarded machinery. -■■■•■' • • "Sydney is the wickedest city m tfc world," croak, the" native knowalls who never saw that joyous place. What price .Cliris.tch.urch or. Wellington m the competition and m respect of.weieht for age ? See this week's issue for reports upon two of the vilest sex-horrors ever made public , one m each of. the .cities named. Within the last, few weeks Wellington's record, with her 50,000 of population, m sexual crime, lias easily .-beaten anything that writer, with vast experience, ever heard of m Sydney, with; her" 500,000, m, *. similar period. It is time we tore off our goggles of seif-right&pusness and tumbled to the beam m Qiir , own eye! . ' ' , ■■-. >' ;-v •■;■ ;'^*-. '■■•:■"'■ '•„♦'. ■■-,-'■* , ,'.■,•■ ... . - ; %liy^is- it -the thirty bob a week counter juniper and others of - bis Glass surround two light shandies, &vd ■'•' a whifl' of cigarette smoke they want the whole town to believe that they are drumk. When will they learn that there is nothing manly m getting; drunk, \ and nothing clever m making a consummate 1 ass of oneself. Are the two attenuated lunatics who put themselves up for pubJic show at the Empire on Saturday afternoon listening. Total abstinence from cigarette, less shandy and straw hat, and a plentiful diet of mother's milk for the next decade and they may be physically and mentally robust endugh to take their place among the boys. ■■.-■•■ • . • They have begun rebuilding the tottering walls of the Trocadero -Private Hotel, which was s-wept &- way m ten minutes by a fire that started m a, one-storied sharity alongside its towering brick ra — -no decidely hot ramparts. Does the City Council intend to' let this place be' rebuilt and internally fitted on the old lines, or will it insist that the public safety shall be considered m the plans ? If the Council does npt, and an internal fire provides the holocaust so narrowly missed when the blaze began next door, and gave a bare chance of escape, then the people of Wellington should hang an Alderman on every electric pole alonp; the bis: fire frontage. • ...» • The Taihape Public School Committee evidently thinks no small potatoes of itself. They had some trouble with the teacher the other day (they mostly do have trouble m these small places)- and the chairman of the committee, . a . gentleman by Act of Parliament, peremptorily summoned her before the committee tp explain her conduct. Committeeman Arrow-smith and his bumptious colleagues evidently think that when the Education Board sends a young lady to Taihape to teach their youngsters the /rudiments i of learning she belongs t» the committee body and soul. A-bout time same of the arrogant ignoramuses were put to breaking stones instead of interfering m a profession they know nothing | about. ■■ ■•' ■ | • • ■ w . . • WHAT HO, SHE BUMPS ! (For N.Z. "Truth.") I see a light m. your window, ■ Your shadow I see on the blind, Come down to your love, my sweetheart, If you would not be thought unkind. I'm sorry should I disappoint you, Oh, do not, I pray, nurse your wrath; I cannot come down to yo.u, dearest, I'm having my fortnightly bath. Still, won't you come down to me, darling ? Love calls, and you cannot say nay, For Love is the awfullest tyrant, You know you are bound to obey. So she stepped from her bath with the towel, Just wait till I slip on my gown ; ! But, changing liar mind on the matter, She slipped on the soap and came down. Oh ! J. F. BURKE. Halcombe, Dec. 1906.