THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 110, 27 July 1907, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

» Who can undaunted brave the Critic's rage ? Or note unmoved his mention mth c Critic 's page? Parado his error m tho public eye ? «• Aud Mother Grundy's rage defy? _______ They are now called Injustices of the Peace. « • « There are any quantity of sins, that we forget to commit. m ■ ' m m There seems to be more land agents m Christchurch than there is land. » • • When the* duty on cartridges was announced, the angry importers went off like a shot. A steamer ticket for another port is usually regarded as a certificate of character by the police. • • • There doesn't seem to be any sign, of Ihat Parsons' Union to demmd a better scale of " pay. There- is more praying than paying at present. • . » • When a man swears he "hasn't taken a drop" he. is probably right: •A drop- ds of no use to anybody, and wouldn't even make a fly boozed. .* • • Comparative kiddies roil up as "drunks" at the Christchurch police court with great regularity and plead guilty with the utmost complacency. The usual lecture follows. A youth named Rump was up this week. He should have been smacked there. . • " * What sweaters the churches are, They only allow Maori missionaries sixty-five quid a year, and the Day and Martin pulpiteers are getting full up of the business. The bosses of a rich church like the Anglican should blush for very shame at offering such a .measly screw. But perhaps they haven't got a blush about them, or a conscience either. • « « Up-country t'other day a Methodist Debating Society discussed the question, "Is truth always expedient ?" and the parson, who was chairman, pointed out that m the lower forms of life the weak practised deception to protect them against their natur a l enemies. A beautiful doctrine, truly, fpr youthful humans, that lying under any circumstances is justifiable. • « • Occasional spurts of humor relieved the dull brown monotony of the recent Counties' Conference. Aged Councillor Lusk, who has reached his three score years and ten, battled hard for a remit from his County, and at length stout, comfortable delegate Ritchie got up and spoke m broad Doric. "Muster Lusk desairves every credit' for the courageous way he has fought for his proposal, but, sir, be has as chance of getting; it passed at this Conference as I a gentleman of his age has of having twins.,"-

A prisoner's "long felt want'.;— a a pint of the best., * * ■'* . - The barber's commercial report : "Moustaches have a downward tendency." . . . . j • -° ■ • . When a police court sentence runs concurrently .it generally puts up j good "time." »■» • m Talking about face massage, if a steam roller . had a spin over the chiveys • of- some ■ , women it. wouldn't eliminate all the- buried Wrinkles, by .any means. The unusual 'spectacle, of,. 'a. bald Ghinaimaii was seen m, WelUngton S.M. Court'- Monday . .. He was an elderly fat Chow, and managed to cultivate several inches of pigtail on the on© fruitful bit of scalp which was the oasis m the surrounding hairless desert. ; >_..■■ ..■'.■ » V • Herrings have been stranded on the beach at. ■ Picton m: such quantities recently that if allowed to remain they are likely to become a nuisance. This is not the first time that Picton has had a visitation of thc kind, and on a previous occasion the herrings had' to be. carried away ii\ punts.. It has been decided to engage a motor launch and clear the beach. * * ** Some sly dog put the Ashburton coppers, on to a "good thing m the way of sly-groggeries on the East Belt t'other clay, and -a •■bold raid was made, but nary a taste was. found on the' premises. They aren't often had like that, but they needn't go 'short of work m the grog line. Bottle collectors make a handsome income m Hashburton. * » a The advance of the Yellow Peril was told m the Arbitration "Court at Christchurch the other day, when it elicited that mantel-piecas" were manufactured by the alien m Australia and send; to New Zealaiy;!.. ...Some kauri rubbish was sent to the Commonwealth, and after the Chow had finished with it it came back here to compete with the colony's work. Another cheer for the cheap and nasty Mongolian. • .*'■'■ • New Zealand isn't a Workers' Paradise after all. The Dunedin charitably inclined are now being asked to dip their hondis into their pockets to help to send home a .mechanic who came out to make his fortune. The man is a locomotive engineer, and for 18 years drove English express trains. Upon his arrival here he sought for railway employment, but. found . that hse „was. debarred by the age limit, his age being 41 years. He is m : the prime of life, and yet he has been reduced to hawking fish for a livelihood. ,•"■'-'«_ * That ancient moral wreck, John Morrison, was dragged out of gaol last 'Saturday and faced Judge Button, who had made a misftake m sen-; tencing him to seven years' on the previous, . Saturday. Everybody thought that about- ..six- years would be taken off the sentence by a relenting Judge, , but Morrison had two more years- plunked.o nt o his sentence. S'Honor explained that he was getting two. years' .for theft and sev- , en for breaking- and entering, but as the sentiences . will , run. concurrently, the gaol-cropped ancient is where he was before: ...*-. • • • ■• The Cambridge Borough Council is the latest to go down on its < belly ahd crawl , to canny, blood-sucking Scot Carnegie for the necessary to erect a library m the town where there is a sanatorium. In deciding to thus crawl, it appears to ' 'Truth" that the Camlb ridge Council is ths meanest of . the. cadgers so far on record, and notwithstanding some determined opposition and such assertions as that Carnegie was. .giving the money away to save his soul and to bribe God and that, one Councillor earnestly avowed his intention to go home and pray that the cadgo from Carnegie would be useless, the Council by five votes to four decided to smoodge on . their stomachs. . Cambridge Councillors, pr the majority of them, know* how to crawl. It seems natural with them. . •• * . . * The Beaks at Palmerston North had a difficult task set them the ether morning, when they were called to deal with a diminutive African negro on a charge •of vagrancy. The man's namo was Andrew Jacob, but . he was commonly known as Aboo. j He said, fn reply to the Bench, that j some while ago he was : brought from j Africa by a doctor, but* now wanted i to get back to his own country. Therefor© he was working back to Wellington, taking collections as ho went. The police said that the man, who apparently was of a , very low order of : intelligence, had been a great nuisance m many places. He was com- \ monly followed aboiut the streets by i a small crowd of people, who apparently took delight m his antics. The Bench considered that the only thing to .do was to sentence the man to a month's imprisonment, but decided to suspend the order if he left the town at. once. Palmerston N. is very charitable, shunting the pest on tp its next door neighbor.- I

Leaiyi to labor and to wait—upon other people. . . One needn't necessarily bea toff accountant to size up figures— of women. . • • • "A • constable always looks a constable,, whether he is m uniform ot not."-— Lawyer Jackson. * « • . A young tiling m the box at Greymouth t'other day was not ashamed to own. to her age. She was" 17, she said. It ni.ii._ib be true. £h3 was on her oath. * * » Socialist . Fitzgerald, of Wellington, states that Budda lived 500 r.ears before Christ, and died at the* age of 80,' and /no person, not even' Methuselah, accomplished thc physiological impossibility of living 999 years. ■ » » A Christchurch fifteen-year-old- kin-c-h-en owned up to prigging nine bicycle lamps lately. He is now m Burnham Industrial School, as his* well-dressed mother frankly avowed that she couldn't control him. If some genius could only invent a lamp that would bite anyone who tampered with it but the, owner he | would be hailed with all 1 sorts' of joy by lon-g suffering cyclists. A correspondent to the "Taumarunui Press" writes : "It may be of interest to your readers- - to know that the rock the Kia Ora is supposed to have ""run on is known to the natives as Piritokq. When Te Rauparaha lived on Tirau Point one of his. wives swam out to it and back. Her name was Taha Moana. Many of his fighting men tried to accomplish it, hut never could. It is also an old fishing ground of the natives. That, was Te Rauparaha's last stand m the latter part of the 20's, perhaps 1828. The distance to Piritoko from the Point (short) is ahout one mile . and I throe-quarters or two miles." | What kind Q,f management is it at aU that exists at the State Coal depot. Everybody seems to be boss, and there doesn't seem to he an ordinary clerk who can take orders civilly. If an order is taken there is generally a lot of bunkum about its delivery, and the coal is often delivered 24 hours late, and then there are two men or more on the cart to see that it is not stolen or that each other doesn't loaf, or something. The complaints about the State Coal Depot are becoming very numerous of late. It looks as if somebody wants shaking, up, and if "Truth" receives any more complaints there will be trouble m store for somebody ; that is, if anybody is to be found to accept blame. * * * Cabby is generally said to know his fare?, but the Jehus who hang out m on© livery stable m Wellington are always puzzled when- one fare is Slung at them, and that is the bill-of-far-8. for breakfast, dinner and tea, Paying 15s a week for their scran, they expect something decent, and they daily fare " dished up to them would, be sneered at by a pauper. This livery stable-keeper makes awful pretensions at being a kind and considerate b oss ; but his care for his employees' innards is a peculiar kind of thing. How he can expect cabby to pick up a fane on the daily bill-of-fare of cheap beef, potatoes, and pumpkin, always ill-cot>ked, is a problem- Mr Euclid himself would not attempt -to. "solve. ■ ». . * » ■ - What truly charitable and humane carrions some Wellington medicos are to be sure. Last Saturday a lad met with a serious accident just near Willis-street and Lambton Quay and quite half an hour was wasted by someone trying to get a doctor on the 'phone to come and tend to the smashed up boy. Most- of the doctors appealed to could not , find time to come. Their excuse was business elsewhere. Just so. The average doctor doesn't regard himself now-a-days as a benefactor. Pte's got strong commercial instincts and life or death ds just a matter of £. S. D. with him. *• . » Roderick McKenzie's six-year-old Noxious Weeds Bill was duly killed m the Reps, on Wednesday night, when Members had a night out and ' ridiculed the Bill out of existence. ! The fun started when McKenzie at- j tempted to make himself chairman of ! the committee on his own Bill, and ih n Members Wilford, Witty, Buddo and others heckled the irate Member for Motueka until he was not sure about his present address. Wilford ; rem a r Iced on one occasion that the l Honorable Member m charge of the i Bill had gone off at half-cock. Chairman Flatman requested Hutt's Thomas to withdraw this expression. He did fo and substituted "full-cock," which also met with censure, when Wilford said he would "Withdraw loth . charges." During these pro-ee--dings McKenzie was trying to get : a word m edge-ways md to engage , the attention of the chairman, whom Wilford advised to stick to his guns and not permit himself to be drawn. "I advice you, sir, not to be •Irawir;" repealed the irrepressible' T.W., and the House sat back and enjoyed it-'.. self, ■ • J

Most men like to be saints, with the reputations bf devils. The generosity of some men is only exceeded by their vanity. • . * • » * . The plainer a woman is, the longer she will take to put. on, her bonnet. ■ • ••.:•_• Wliite— Rice were , the . names of a pair who - recently committed matrimony 'on the West Coast. WhiteRice! Evidently a case of throwing themselves at each other. * « » When the Bill for the suppression of : Tohungas was being discussed m the Reps, mere pakeha members pronounced it , "Tde-hunga." On the other hand, Carroll, Ngata, Hone Heke, and , Napier Fraser called it "Tohoonga," with the accent on the "To." • ■■ * • When a "drunk" gives a false name over night and doesn't remember it m the* morning there is trouble. A chap named Seeler hit upon the device—a useless device— at '""linst.church, and forgot all about being Gordon for the time being. The only man m , court of the name was Sergeant Gordon, and he wouldn't admit the offence. Eventually Seeler was sealed- * * *? When fat Joe Lee was charged at Wellington the other day with wasting the ., city water supply, it was shown that he had been previously convicted for the same offence. Mr O'Shea remarked that it was the practice of all Chinamen to use the supply for the purpose of washing vegetables and. for other trade purposes. Counsel did not mention if thc Chows washed themselves. The offence was hard to detect as it was committed at night. There were two charges against the alien, and on. the first he was fined 10s. with costs 7s. solicitor £1 ls, and was ordered to pay the costs of thc information on the second charge. » » • Sawmill laborers are not the best paid individuals m the world, and the way a number are being treated m the way of pay on a mill outside Dannevirke deserves a little publicity. Though under agreement to pay on the 7th of each month, the firm pays often as _ late as a fortnight after, though the cheques bear date a lot earlier. What the firm means by it nobody seems to know. It might be darned laziness on the part of some/body connected with the concern, at any rate the delay is very hard on wprking-rnen, who, perhaps, have • families - depending on them. This firm ought to keep to its agreejn&at.' It would be' quick to jump on the workers if they committed any breach. / '.'*'. • * ' Speaking m the. Reps the other night, A. L. D. Fraser. recalled a lady tohunga, who travelled throughout, the length and breadth of New Zealand, and whose panacea for all ills the : flesh is heir to was Threestar brandy. She travelled . from town to town and from kainga to kainga, and as she wandered . .on through the . colony her mana .grew until she was clothed with almost god-like attributes. Her medicine was the elixir of life, and people* were born again so long as they drank neat Three-star brandy. Fraser had' himself experienced m hotels adjacent' to Maori settlements a shortage of brandy because . of the sensational demand for it by the natives. •■. • • A Westport Chinkie who trades under the name of > Sue Pin, was ' caught npiumising lately, and the police policified. Sue. through his counsel, said that lie had •*. + crrible bad heart, and that opium was i?s necessary to him as water was to a washtub. . He only had a little bit. ph hand, and since that had been ; confiscated he had been obliged to use drugs. On his own showing he !must have 'been, a persistent smoker! lof opium for years if it was neces- I sary to his good health. Opium *is a' queer cure for heart-disease anyhow. Magistrate Kenrick said he I couldn't issue a license to anyone to smoke the stuff, and came down wallop pn Sue's pocket. Mr Costs also had a big cut m. and Sue Pin was m the' soup all right. « ■• * • This column recently printed an: item about an ex-Christcbiirch resi-. dent, .who believed m cremation, desiring to be consigned to the destructor so that . his mortal remains wouldn't pollute the ground. He is very much "ex" now, but the Coun-/ eil didn't grant his last request. Of course, he never intended to be pitched into' the furnace with the cats and dogs and sundries ;. the blast was to be utilised. Now calls at oiir Christ' hurch office a Sydenham gent who also believes m cremation, and who avers that he would sooner be dealt/ with m the blast furnace when aU is over with him than be planted m a colder . region where daisies would, grow over his head. And there is such a large number m | that, city who hold similar ideas that 'it's up to Mayor Paylin***-fen?o t* get a move on and have a Municipal Crematorium established. I