THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 112, 10 August 1907, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

Who can undatinted brave the^Critic's rage? O'rnote unmoved his mention in. the Critic's page? Parade his error m the public eye ? And Mother Grandy'Srafee defy? . Humor- is the safety valve of * life. Two many cooks, bring down wages. ■*. * * A bright girl does not generally cast reflections. * * * No man can serve .two. mistresses— with convenience. ' * * * There is nothing more nearly permanent m human life than a well-es- ! tablished custom. * .* * j The Yankee comedian' at Fuller's (cuddling the girl) ; "Am I m heaven or Newtown Park ?"■ * * * rr Heard m the crowd : '-'You may marry a girl witih a lot of sisters, and you will want to kiss all of them." * , . ♦ . • - * Judge Docker, of Australia, says that women give clearer evidence than men, but having more imaginative powers are better liars. * * * Advertising m a Manawatu paper, the death of Mrs Welsh at Port Chalmers, her gratified relatives added : "A beautiful end ; no mourning." "Rather uncomplimentary to the deceased. ..* ■.•■■ •■"*■ * According to lecturer Gilchrist ' w His Majesty's on. Sunday evening there are 32,000 different kinds' of mammals, and the speaker commented ■ upon the difficulty Noah' would have experienced m finding room for two of each m the ark, to say nothing of the enormous storage space required for food for their' consumption. . • * -. »• * *■■ Perhaps because of the Anti-Chow feeling stirred up m Dunediri of late, the alien m that Scotch quarter is having a rough passage, and the police won't let -fiim block up the footpath with vegetable baskets. One yellow ancient ; of 73, who said he had- a blameless record, was fined 2s 6d the other morning. ■ He .thought he was going -to be , hanged, and wept, and howled accordingly. *..;.- *"■;■■•■ * The little steamer Cygnet abducted a well-known Lyttelton stevedore on Monday night. He stayed below a minute too' long, and found the steamer cast . off from the wharf when he rushed on " deck. Despite entreaties, the captain wouldn't put back, and an agitated official was carried to Kaikoura, from where a wire was sent m time to prevent the dragging of the harbor m search of his body. * * * Football ; it's nothing but football nowadays. New Zeal anders are like a nation gone mad- Everything is sacrificed to football. Up at Taihape the other day a meeting for the purpose of forming a volunteer corps had to lapse because there was a football meeting elsewhere. Scrummers are all right m their way, but on the broad and bloody field of battle their nippmess,, their lightness, etc., will be of little avail. It's pretty rotten, anyhow, that a meeting to enroll "sogers" .has to go under to football fanaticsii who met the same eviendng. ' *•* ■ * Socialist G-ilchri9t pave an illustrated lecture on animals m His Majesty's Theatre on Sunday last. The | sea eagle, ho said, lived upon the fish caught 'hy other sea birds. It was ; a font of a robber, a sort of a capitalist. The drone bee was also referred to as. the capitalist of the hive. Collectively,, his only performance was to sing occasionally, and one only was selected to mate with the i queen and', then,. died, : but the rest or the drones were usatess and unnecessary members o£ ffahe community,., hke the capitalists. '

A boii m the pot. is worth two on the meek.. * * w Dull girls are sharp enough- Ik) cut acquaintances sometimes., * * * Affectation is as necessary to ithe mind, as -dress is to the body.., * * * An undertaker is not a tradesman ; : ho follows the medical profession., * * * More clean police court sheets have happened at Taihape of late. Die-, happy ites seem to be saving up their thirsts for a special- occasion. : ■*■••. •■ ■* •• ' ■ * ■ Cabled that an International Theatrical Trust, with a capital of £20,---000,000, has been formed. , By gad, sir. they'll have a cemetery of ghosts for a weekly walk with all that boodle, ■■.'■' * !• '■* • ■ * ■ . A Sydney judge has declared that a lady help is a domestic servant, and amenable to the Masters and Servants Act. Ye gods ! Fancy GwcndQlene and Ermyntrude being classed with "merely Mary Ann" ! * * * The Chow work on the Sabbath at Otaki to the scandal of the godly, and Ah Chow and Lue Lee were according^ police-courted the other day, when each brought a bob aad no costs. As if that, will deter the alien from breaking the law some more.. * * * One advantage to be derived from floating a tmpot society of some sort is that one can get. elected to some honorary position m it, and work the oracle for a photographer to take the likenesses of every officebearer. These he exhibits m a lar/re-sized frame m various chemists' shop windows, as an advertisement to show the public his ability to improve upon the originals, and society follows get a certain amount of fame thereby. * * * The • case of a plaintiff versus " Mary Aitkeh" was called m Wellington the other morning, and a broad grin broke out m the solicitors' benches and rippled round the Court until it surged amongst the spectators like a line of breakers whipped on to the rocks at Island Bay by a southerly gale. If the defendant, by any strange chance had been "Mary Ann Aitken" the disorder would have been riotous m the extreme. * * . • * It is really time the police began to -keep a special eye on the Chinese dens of Wellington. Two latest re- j emits to these dens of debauchery i are said to be a couple of girls, j until recently employed ,m a New- i town factory. Now, though very J young m years, they are nothing short of Chinese molls. It's time j the missionaries took a hand also ; but, then, these girls have nothing to. put on the plate. - * . . * ■ * The "Hunterville Express" starts out to correct a prevailing false impression thus : " 'The Present Guelph, otherwise Edward VII.' This is from the •'•'•Brisbane' Worker.' The old vulgar 'delusion that Guelph is the perpetual patronymic, of the Royal Family of England dies hard;, and comparatively few 'are aware that the late Queen was the last monarch of the House of Brunswick. Neither before and after her marriage was Guelph her family name.," Now, anyone 'but an ignorant inkslinging galoot would dare to air his "larnin' " if he were aware that King Edward's name is Wet-tin; and . that he is of Guelphic breeds • . * •*..*. Says the "Inangahua Times" :. The similarity of one Chinaman to another though at thie Customs port of great service to Celestials, yet at ■ times is attended with grave inconvenience. Mr Lie Long, who never held a water race, was rated at £3 odd by the Council. He was sued, &nd wrote to the Court, which, however, rejected his letter as informal and decreed against him. It now appears that Lv Long was the owner of the water race, and that he therefore was the guilty party. But Mr Lie Long has to pay the - piper. Lie Long should have laid low, and no matter how long Lie Long lies, it looks as if he lied too Long, and has been found out for the long liar that, he is._ * ■* •* "Fair-play," how is it that wowsers decline to sign their names to their inky efforts, writes all sorts of good things m a letter to the "Westport News," concerning bully Bobby Boy 4, whose actions at Burnett's Face were recently caustically criticised m these columns. Says "Fairplay" among other things :' "Since the crusade against the drinking dens and billiards and the "two-up" school, v?e can get to sleep at 12 o'clock on pay Saturday night, and we have opened up a Good Templars' Lodge at Burnett's Face, also a Mission Hall, so I think we are on the road to reform if Mr Boyd will continue to do his utmost to keep the vices down as he has done m the past. Good luck, "Baby." "Baby" is [good. But the Good Templars' Lodge i and the Mission Hall ; why Boyd lisn'.tj a 'bofaiby, hje's a brick*

Though a word to the -wise is held sufficient, it is not always efficient., * * . * Chinese coolies are being sent from the Rand at the rate of 2000 p,er month, * * *. ■ If the devil takes a less hateful shape to us thia-n to our fathers, he is as 'busy with us as them a *.. * * Who wa9 the lowly clerk who aspir-. .Ed to the hand . of the Premier's daughter and was shifted South?' .*...••*• ' * There is money m the sly-grog business. One illicit seller openly boasj&l at Rangitikei the other day that he cleared £600 at the game, •and intended retiring from business. As .the sly-grogger is now being gaoled without the option, perhaps he has no alternative but to retire while he is safe. * * * If- a person is present m the Magistrate's Court when a case is being -heard, he may be called' upon to give evidence, without subpoena. If, however, he is merely m the passage adjoining the Court room, he cannot be compelled to enter the witness-box, unless he has been served with a subpoena. In the Weiss alleged sly-grog cases, the police desired a probationer to , identify Frederick Weiss, who was then standing m the outside passage, when Mr Wilford interposed and raised the point above mentioned, which is an unusual one. •. • • In a Willis-street private establishment the other day, a three-card sharper got on the job and tried to take down an old Dane, who wasn't having any. Some desultory remarks were made concerning King Edward VII., and this the Dane, who is loyal right down to his sox, resented. Then there was a fight, and the three-card sharper bit the hand of the old man, his fangs inflicting a grievous wound. Complaint was made to the police, and for some extraordinary reason no ac- [ tion was taken. This biting business seems to be chronic with the broads manipulator, though he is more adept at biting lugs than anything else. *- • * Something of a sensation was caused m Manners-street, Wellington, on Monday, when a fashionable equipage pulled up at a Chow's shop and no less a personage than Lady Ward entered to do some shopping. The crowd outside gradually increased as time went on and the lady failed to reappear, and at length a resident gave an employee a shilling to purchase some fruit and incidentally to report upon matters m the Chinkie's. :He returned with the information that ,the Premier's missus was buying silk, and had bargained for about &o worth. In view of Ward's heated denunciation of the heathen, his better half's dealings with the Yellow Horror require some explanation. . . • V « Wellington Hospital seems to be run m a very casual sort of away. On Monday a man suffering from enlarged • neck glands received from the assistant surgeon a ticket of admission to the institution, and also possessed himself of an order signed by a member of the Hospital Board. These he presented at tlie hospital on Tuesday, and was received by a porter or sweeperoiit, who told him he would have to see the doctor next (Wednesday) morning. The patient was suffering great pain and knew that the complaint was being aggravated by delaying a necessary operation, but he couldn't force his way into the infirmary with a dunderheaded rouseabout m the way. What sort of a hospital is it that leaves the privilege of admitting or rejecting pa- 1 tients to the slushy or the undergardener or the person who empties the slops ? *. * * • Police probationers are extremely valuable to the force. They are young, and haven't acquired the regulation step, and m other respects they are unlike peelers, so that they are largely used for detecting slygrog selling. Since Mrs Weiss lost her wine license m Willis-street, the shop has still held the same attraction as of yore, and ladies m particular found it convenient to drop m and talk over the latest scandal. Accordingly, aspiring cops Regan, Smithers, and Church lounged m one | evening and asked for wine. _ They liked it well and sauntered m on another evening, when one of the trio surreptitiously bottled his nip. This was shown by the Government analyst to contain twice as much alcohol as ordinary beer. Emily Weiss was then charged with selling wine without a license ; also with being the occupier of unlicensed premises on which liquor was sold. She produced a document showing- that she -had- madr over the retail business to her son a month previously, and Magistrate Riddell dismissed the first information, but fined the woman £3 and costs 7s on the charge of being i tobe occupier of unlicensed premises. The son, Frederick Weiss, is also charged with selling without a license, but his case has been adjourned pending the decision an his mother's pase.,